Nelly Olengo: A Poet’s Journey

These are the women breaking new ground in Kenya’s politics, business, and academia. They are not just celebrities, but public figures whose work makes an impact on the country’s future.

Nelly Olengo

I was in sixth grade at the time I realized there was more to me than the popular children I had always been drawn to as a child.

Nelly Olengo

In sixth grade, I was a classmate of Nelly Olengo, a local poet who would go on to become Kenya’s first female African MP. The two became friends and quickly became involved in politics as a result of their shared interest in education.

Nelly Olengo

Olengo’s poetry career was an early catalyst in that direction. I remember her reading to us in class and telling us that she wanted to be a nurse.

Nelly Olengo

She graduated as a nurse. She began her career with the Kenya Red Cross as a nurse, later returning to school to become a teacher.

Nelly Olengo

I don’t think I ever got over my school years; the experience and the people that I encountered taught me about education and self-empowerment.

Nelly Olengo

She became a writer. She wrote a novel about her early years and about her love affair with Kenya’s independence struggle, and also about her experience of getting involved in politics. It became the basis of what would become her first short story collection, titled Njama, which was published in 2010. It was a time, she says, when she also realized that she was “a writer who never finished a book.”

“I never finished a book.”

Nelly Olengo

Today, she is a member of the KANU political party and an MP from the Kiambu district, the country’s new Western Highlands. She also has a new book, Kanyakani, her fourth, published by Shearsman in 2018. It is about how politics affects identity and identity politics.

Nelly Olengo

As a member of parliament, she represents the

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