Wahome Mutahi
1954 – 2003 Kenyan journalist, satirist, novelist
Kenyan satirist behind the 'Whispers' column who was detained and jailed for sedition in the 1980s.
Wahome Mutahi was a journalist famous for his humorous 'Whispers' newspaper column, which gently mocked everyday Kenyan life and, by extension, those in power. In the mid-1980s he was detained and held at Nyayo House, then convicted of sedition and imprisoned. He drew on that experience in his writing, including the prison novel 'Three Days on the Cross'. He died in 2003 after surgery.
In the timeline
- 1986 Rushed sedition trials and guilty pleas one of those convicted of sedition
- 1986 Writer Wahome Mutahi held at Nyayo House the detained writer