Critics killed Grace before her time by ignoring her writings
An image of Grace Ogot on the cover of her autobiography Days of My Life. Mrs Ogot died Wednesday Morning March 18, 2015 at the Nairobi Hospital where she had been taken for treatment. PHOTO | PHOEBE OKALL
The Grace Ogot fan who happens to be a very successful mathematics teacher told me most authoritatively: “A person, a human being, doesn’t die just like that. A jealous or envious Kenyan somewhere must have had a hand in the death.”
My tormentor meant to say that Kenyan literary critics and scholars do not say and do enough studying of and writing on our own creative writers, including the departed Grace Ogot.
I couldn’t help but think of the Communications Authority of Kenya that does not care that the majority of my compatriots prefer locally created and conceived products on NTV, KTN and Citizen.
“Who killed Grace Ogot,” reads a message I received from one of her fans (readers) immediately after her death was announced by local media on Wednesday, March, 18, 2015.
“She died at Nairobi Hospital,” was my answer after browsing the three local TV stations that the Communications Authority of Kenya reluctantly resurrected recently.
