East Africa's best-known woman author, Grace Emily Akinyi Ogot (born 1930) wrote novels and short stories. She also became an important political figure in modern Kenya.

Grace Emily Akinyi Ogot earned a distinctive position in Kenya's literary and political history. The best known writer in East Africa, and with a varied career background, she became in 1984 one of only a handful of women to serve as a member of Parliament and the only woman assistant minister in the cabinet of President Daniel Arap Moi.

Born in Kenya's Central Nyanza District in 1930, she was the child of pioneering Christian parents in the traditional Luo stronghold of Asembo. Her father, Joseph Nyanduga, was an early convert to the Anglican Church and one of the first men in Asembo to receive a Western education. He later taught at the Church Missionary Society's Ng'iya Girls' School. She remembered him reading her Bible stories...