Asenath Bole Odaga, in Dec. 2014 (Kenyan folklorist, novelist, & publisher)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

I thought she was born in 1937 or 1938, but the obits claim she was 80 or
83 when she died in Kisumu, Kenya on Dec. 1, 2014.

She was "the first East African woman to start a publishing house, Lake
Publishers and Enterprises, founded in 1982." She wrote more than a dozen books.

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/artculture/Author-Asenath-Bole-Odaga-dies-at-83/-/1954194/2542340/-/s0ln0az/-/index.html

Second half:

By PATRICK LANGAT

...Mrs Odaga wrote children stories that included the famous one being the
Kip stories that featured Kip on the Farm of 1972, Kip Goes to the City and
Kip at the Coast, both published in 1997.

Mrs Odaga was first published in 1966 with her novel Secrets of Monkey Rock.

Her husband Mzee James Odaga celebrated her as a committed and genuine
Christian with a strong personality that had touched many lives through
her writing.

"She has contributed immensely to the development of children literature
for decades," he said at his Kisumu home yesterday.

Mr Odaga described his wife as a critical thinker who spent most of her
time writing and thinking.

She is credited with popularizing the Luo language in her various writings
that include the Dholuo-English Dictionary published in 2005 and the
Luo Sayings of 1994.

Her other works include Something for Nothing published in 2001 and Between
the Years published in 1987.

She was also actively involved in women empowerment.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000143298/kenyan-literary-icon-asenath-bole-odaga-dies-in-kisumu

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/Storyteller-Asenath-Odaga-takes-her-last-bow/-/1220/2546000/-/15editn/-/index.html

First paragraphs:

By DAVID ADUDA

In Luo oral traditions, the nomenclature for ending a story is Thu
Tinda. Loosely, it can be approximated to Amen, the Christian affirmative
statement during worship, itself borrowed from Hebrew language, and means
and so be it.

Asenath Bole Odaga, who died this week at the ripe age of 80 in Kisumu,
adopted Thu Tinda as her literary signature and trade mark.

A bookshop she operated for years in Kisumu was christened Thu Tinda, and
one of her seminal books was entitled: Thu Tinda: Stories from Kenya, which
was published in 1980.

The Thu Tinda motif was later to percolate even through the radio talk
shows she hosted in a vernacular radio station, where she discussed
pertinent cultural issues.

The signature tune she adopted aptly captures her adoration for, and
dalliance with oral literature. She wrote, practised and lived oral
literature and remained true to the canons of traditional wisdom.

For nearly five decades, Ms Bole Odaga researched and published on
African traditional literature. She dabbled in different genres of
literature -- children stories, short stories, novels, literary criticism
and oral literature. However, it is in oral literature that she made
the greatest contribution...

(snip)

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Literary-lioness-Asenath-Bole-Odaga-closes-her-chapter-at-83-/-/539444/2544928/-/qqdexn/-/index.html
(remembrance - it's two pages long)

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

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...

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/Literary-icon-who-did-much-more-than-analyse-folk-tales/-/1220/2562684/-/view/printVersion/-/bbplalz/-/index.html

First fifth:

By OKUMBA MIRUKA

When Chinua Achebe, the father of African Literature, died at the age of
82, one of my students remarked "the man was very old," to which I retorted
"literary icons are never too old". This remark came to mind when I learnt
of the demise of Asenath Bole Odaga at 80 years on December 1.

Bespectacled, with an ever smiling face and hardly discernible lisp in
her speech, Asenath was a composite of personalities -- a scholar,
anthologist, novelist, children's writer, lexicographer, dramatist,
archivist and entrepreneur.

Asenath's portfolio of literary works spans many genres, although she
is probably best remembered for her pioneer 1982 text Oral Literature: A
School Certificate Course (co-authored with Kichamu Akivaga), which was
the mandatory text in secondary school oral literature for many years
before younger entrants like myself came into the picture.

In this stable, Asenath also authored Thu Tinda: Stories from Kenya
(1980), Yesterday's Today: The Study of Oral Literature (1984), and
Kenyan Folktales and Luo Sayings (1995).

The formal entry of oral literature into the school syllabus in 1982 was,
for Asenath, a milestone in reclaiming our identity and the value of
our culture. "In my initial research," she observed, "people used to
feel inferior about our oral literature"...

http://allafrica.com/stories/201501020474.html
Remembering Mama Asenath Bole Odaga

By Khainga Ookwemba

...I was fortunate enough to read and live with Asenath in the same
neighbourhood when I was a school-going boy in Kisumu where she had
relocated early in 1980s...

...Asenath's best known novel is Between the Years, but she wrote
another equally totemic novel, Endless Road, the story of a couple
whose courtship and marriage is bumpy. Dino falls in love with a young
lady called Salmarie. Dino has had two unsuccessful marriages whose
shadows follow him in every relationship he gets into. The first marriage
ended in a suicide before its consummation while the second ended in a
divorce. Apparently, Dino has a problem with his sexuality - a sexual
dysfunction that is more psychological than he is actually impotent. Dino's
is a family problem that originated from an age-old curse pronounced by one
of his great grandmothers.

His fiancé gets to know of this seemingly unmanageable problem, thus she
begins to have doubts about her decision to marry him. Salmarie is
discouraged by village gossipers and people who are envious because she
is marrying a rich man! But because of her love for Dino, she's determined
to marry him no matter what. Her resolve is strengthened by her
mother-in-law and her own supportive Christian parents who advice her that
the problem can be solved traditionally: "try and convince him our people
have ways of treating and reverting such afflictions. If he should agree
and come back here and talk to us, we'll advice him on what to do. We're
Christians, but nonetheless, we'd assist him in getting suitable treatment.
Jesus himself said that if your ass falls in a pit on Sabbath day, you may
work to get it out," her father says.

A seemingly antediluvian advice by a father gives the daughter some
hope. Salmarie joins her fiancé in Sweden where he is working and they wed.
But Dino is not sure of himself...

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/lifestyle/article/2000097242/bole-odaga-i-slipped-and-took-to-my-heels-from-arms-of-men
(three page article about Odaga from 2013)

https://library.osu.edu/literary-map-of-africa/authors/odaga-asenath-bole
(bibliography, starting in 1966 - there are 17 stories for children)

https://www.google.com/search?q=asenath+odaga+kip&biw=1280&bih=594&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoATgKahUKEwjfr-v774bJAhXFGD4KHYtmAW4
(photos and a very few book covers)


Lenona.

[cathyc...@aol.com]

As Styble would say, this is MAJOR.