Professor Micere Mugo was an essential voice in Kenya's literary journey

The late Prof Micere Githae Mugo was one tough cookie. She gave the KANU government so much grief that when she escaped into exile, in 1982, the government stripped her of Kenyan citizenship.

Before that she had been imprisoned and tortured. In Zimbabwe, where she first ran to, the late Robert Mugabe, then a progressive leader, offered her citizenship, for which she remained eternally grateful. Whenever she got an opportunity to introduce herself, she never forgot to state the fact that she was Zimbabwean, before adding that she was also a citizen of the world.