THE PRESENT MOMENT Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye Afterword by Valerie Kibera Historical Context by Jean Hay THE WOMEN WRITING AFRICA SERIES
WOMEN WRITING AFRICA
A Project of The Feminist Press at The City University of New York Funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation Women Writing Africa is a project of cultural reconstruction that aims to restore African women’s voices to the public sphere. Through the collection of written and oral narratives to be published in six regional anthologies, the project will document the history of self-conscious literary expression by African women throughout the continent. In bringing together women’s voices, Women Writing Africa will illuminate for a broad public the neglected history and culture of African women, who have shaped and been shaped by their families, societies, and nations. The Women Writing Africa Series, which supports the publication of individual books, is part of the Women Writing Africa project.
THE WOMEN WRITING AFRICA SERIES
ACROSS BOUNDARIES The Journey of a South African Woman Leader A Memoir by Mamphela Ramphele AND THEY DIDN’T DIE A Novel by Lauretta Ngcobo CHANGES A Love Story A Novel by Ama Ata Aidoo COMING TO BIRTH A Novel by Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye DAVID’S STORY A Novel by Zoë Wicomb HAREM YEARS The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, 1879–1924 by Huda Shaarawi Translated and introduced by Margot Badran NO SWEETNESS HERE And Other Stories by Ama Ata Aidoo TEACHING AFRICAN LITERATURES IN A GLOBAL LITERARY ECONOMY Women’s Studies Quarterly 25, nos. 3 & 4 (fall/winter 1998) Edited by Tuzyline Jita Allan YOU CAN’T GET LOST IN CAPE TOWN A Novel by Zoë Wicomb ZULU WOMAN The Life Story of Christina Sibiya by Rebecca Hourwich Reyher Published by The Feminist Press at The City University of New York The Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016 First ebook edition, 2015 First Feminist Press edition, 2000 Originally published in 1987 by East African Educational Publishers/Heinemann Kenya, Nairobi. Copyright © 1987 by Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye Afterword copyright © 2000 by Valerie Kibera Historical Context copyright © 2000 by Jean Hay All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical essays or reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Macgoye, Marjorie Oludhe. The present moment / Marjorie Oludhe ; afterword by Valerie Kibera ; historical context by Jean Hay. p. cm. — (Women writing Africa series) eISBN: 978-1-55861-896-1 (ebook) ISBN: 978-1-55861-248-8 (paperback) 1. Women—Kenya—Fiction. 2. Old age homes—Fiction. 3. Aged women—Fiction. 4. Kenya—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series. PR9381.9.M19P74 2000 This publication is made possible, in part, by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in support of The Feminist Press’s Women Writing Africa Series, and by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, with the support and encouragement of Sonia Simon-Cummings. Publication of this book is supported by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. The Feminist Press would also like to thank Joanne Markell and Genevieve Vaughan for their generosity in supporting this book. The digitization of this project is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. CONTENTS
