Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source is a novel about four generations of Kenyan women. Through their lives, Ogola traces the history of a rapidly changing country and society. The novel was published in 1994, receiving the 1995 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book in Africa and the 1995 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.
The River and the Source quickly became required reading for many Kenyan students, providing an example of uniquely Kenyan literature. Exploring themes of tradition, female empowerment, colonialism, religion, and motherhood, the novel takes the reader from pre-colonial Kenya all the way through independence and the post-colonial period. It touches on cultural and political upheavals, the influence of colonialism and religion, the AIDS epidemic, and—throughout the narrative—the courage of everyday African women as they carve out changing roles for themselves in society.
Dr. Tom Odhiambo of the University of Nairobi said of the work, "Ogola's text seeks to project Kenyan women as capable of not only telling their own stories but also of claiming their rightful place and identity in the broader national life."
Ogola drew on many details from her own life to write the work. By profession, Ogola was not a writer. She herself was a doctor and was working with and advocating for HIV and AIDS patients at a time when the epidemic was sweeping Kenya but the disease was still shrouded in taboo and shame. Ogola was also a member of the Catholic order Opus Dei, as is one of her characters in the novel. She was extremely interested in women's empowerment, and the stories her mother told her about the strength of her female ancestors were what inspired her to write her first novel. Spurred on by her debut novel's success, Ogola wrote a sequel, I Swear By Apollo, published in 2002.
