Gakaara wa Wanjaũ

Gakaara wa Wanjaũ was born in Nyeri District in 1921 and attended a local primary school in pre-independent Kenya. He never finished high school and never got college education. [cite book
last = Pugliese
first = Cristiana
authorlink =
title = Author, Publisher and Gĩkũyũ Nationalist: The Life and Writings of Gakaara wa Wanjaũ
date = 1995
pages = 270
url =
isbn = 3-92-751035-1] He, nevertheless, started a career as a writer which, would be long and tortuous, and one that would be hampered severally throughout his life. During the state of emergency for example, together with other freedom fighters, who had been labelled "hard core," he spent years in detention. It was at this time, observes historian Caroline Elkins, that he started documenting events in his life, albeit discreetly. [cite book
last = Elkins
first = Caroline
authorlink =
title = Imperial Reckoning: The untold story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
publisher = Macmillan
date = 2006
pages = 475
url =
id =
isbn = 0-80-508001-5] Later, his books after having been banned and causing him to be arrested, were passed to be included as part of various syllabi for Gĩkũyu language instruction in the lower classes(grades) of primary school--mostly standard one, two, and three. These books mainly included children's short stories--often a collection of folk-lore. Teachers often used the popular introductory texts by writer Fred Kago titled "Wĩrute Gũthoma (Foundations of Learning)" for the basics and supplemented them with Gakaara's stories.

He died on March 30, 2001 aged 80. He was buried in Karatina [Free Media Foundation: [A Tribute to Gakaara wa Wanjau: A Literary and Cultural Icon Passes On...] ] .

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