Mugo Gatheru

R. Mugo Gatheru (born 21 August 1925) is a Kenyan writer. His autobiographical A Child of Two Worlds describes growing up in colonial Kenya.^[1]

Gatheru was born to a squatter family living on a European farm. He attended medical school in Nairobi, but was forced to continue his education abroad after he protested the treatment of Africans by the colonial rulers. After a year in India, he spent eight years from 1950 in the United States before studying law in England. He returned to Kenya when it gained independence in 1963.^[2]

Works

• A Child of Two Worlds: a Kikuyu's story, 1964
• Kenya : from colonization to independence, 1888-1970, 2005
• From beneath the tree of life : a story of the Kenyan people of Ngai, 2005

References

1. Simon Gikandi, 'Gatheru, Mugo', in Gikandi, ed., Encyclopedia of African Literature. Routledge; 2002. ISBN 978-0-415-23019-3. Reprinted online here
2. Fetter, B., Colonial Rule in Africa, 1979, p.191