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Stories by R D Okang'a Ooko
Articles by R D Okang'a Ooko
Poems by R D Okang'a Ooko
Plays by R D Okang'a Ooko
- Tandawuoya
- Sick Meat
- Ayaki
- Okapi
- Deliver Us From Evil
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Okang’a Ooko , (1967- ), is Kenyan born designer and artist
most of whose writing is based on the lives of poor, oppressed
Kenyans in the new millenium struggling for identity and order
in the new African social and political renaissance. He grew up
in the seventies and eighties in Kisumu City. Later he studied
art, design and communication at the Kenya Polytechnic, attaining
a diploma. He worked briefly as artist based at the Kenya National
Theatre and wrote most of his first volume of poetry and drama
during a single year in 1992; most of it remain unpublished except
one; a collection of poems published in 1994 as Longings.
For the past fifteen years, he has worked with a number of design
companies and Non-governmental organisations in Nairobi in many
varied roles mainly as graphic designer, product designer and
development designer. Currently he works as the creative director
of Oba Kunta Octopus, a Nairobi-based design firm. Ooko's experiences
during his youth, working sporadically in East Africa's cities
and towns and failing dismally at jobs that required set and regular
office hours, joblessness, working briefly as a musician, troubles
with women, love affairs with other tribes, travelling around
Africa, and many years’ work occupation in many and varied
roles centered on design and development work provide many of
his stories themes, such as conflict, self-blame, revenge, over-reaction,
meanness, exploitation, crashing human relations, and African
men and women in the struggle. His first novel, Coming Home
To Silence is due for publication soon. A divorced father
of two, Ooko belongs to the new crop of African writers in a fast
changing globalised world. He is focussing on online publishing
and is in the throes of launching the first Kenyan online journal
for creative writing, SOMA. All rights reserved.
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