Literary lioness Asenath Bole Odaga closes her chapter at 83

One of Kenya’s literary giants died early this week. Yet many Kenyans may never have heard of Asenath Bole Odaga, 83, who died on December 1 in Kisumu after an extended battle with pancreatic cancer.

The prolific writer, pioneering publisher-printer, champion of women and girls’ empowerment, and all-round advocate, researcher and scholar in the field of African oral literature, Asenath had the strength to move mountains at many levels.

I had the good fortune to know her at the University of Nairobi where we were together doing a Master’s degree in the Department of Literature under the tutelage of Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

She was already in her mid-40s but her youthful spirit was keen to drink in the wisdom of East African scholars like Ngugi, Micere Mugo and Okot p’Bitek, all of whom were proponents of indigenous languages and oral literature as the basis for building a new Kenyan literature and culture.

Asenath had already written several children’s books, some in English, others in her mother tongue Dholuo, which was one reason she was so thrilled to be where young scholars were being encouraged to do their own grassroot research in orature.

Believed wholeheartedly

It was something she believed in wholeheartedly and is a major reason she became the first East African woman to start her own publishing house. It was her way of ensuring that all her (and others) Dholuo poetry, short stories and plays got published.

The publishing house, Lakeside Publishers, is run by her son Peter.

But making the decision to leave Nairobi after completing her Master’s to pursue her dream of developing a strong Luo literary tradition may have cost her the national acclaim she should have received before she died.

Yet I can’t help feeling Asenath had no regrets. The Dholuo-English Dictionarythat she published in 2005 is evidence of how committed she was to raising public appreciation of her mother tongue.

And just as her mentors from University of Nairobi believed that drama was a powerful tool for conveying ideas, promoting local languages and empowering ordinary people, Asenath also advocated the translation and performance of plays in Dholuo.

This I witnessed first-hand when we went with her, Grace Ogot and Albert Wandago to Nyanza where Ogot’s plays were staged for appreciative local audiences. It was Asenath’s version of Nairobi University’s Free Travelling Theatre which had only performed around the country in English and Kiswahili.

The other reason — despite her having written more than 20 books, (including A School Certificate Course on Oral Literature (1982) —Asenath hasn’t been lionised as a Kenyan literary giant, is because she multitasked.

She chose to pursue a whole other career, founding her own NGO in 1980 committed to empowering women and girls.

Gender equity

Through Gender and Development Centre (GDC), she not only helped rural women get into groups, but helped them start up small scale enterprises with funds she raised from foreign donors that were keen on these ideals.

All this time, Asenath never stopped writing or researching. She never lost her passion for promoting gender equity and for passing on the message that men need not be threatened by women’s empowerment that benefits men and women.

But again, Asenath never was a woman who sought the limelight. She was busy putting her ideas into practices, be it in children’s or oral literature or indigenous performance.

She even stopped her doctoral studies at the University of Nairobi’s Institute of African Studies when she felt it was time to work for young women and girls.

Those were the years leading up to Kenya’s hosting of the United Nations International Decade on Women, so Asenath was able to get tremendous support for her women’s projects.

But just because she recognised that writing books, even when they were in Dholuo, didn’t necessarily reach the rural population she sought to touch, Asenath the social activist, deserves to be recognised for the grand sweep of her vision.

She was a pioneer as well as a poet, a performer and a whole-souled woman who I remember with immense affection.

She is survived by the husband James Odaga, a son, Peter Odaga and daughter Adhiambo Odaga, the former representative of Ford Foundation West Africa and currently the head of Dangote Foundation.