R. Mugo Gatheru (born 21 August 1925) is a Kenyan writer. His autobiographical A Child of Two Worlds describes growing up in colonial Kenya.
Gatheru was born to a squatter family living on a European farm. He attended medical school in Nairobi, but was forced to continue his education abroad after he protested the treatment of Africans by the colonial rulers. After a year in India, he spent eight years from 1950 in the United States before studying law in England. He returned to Kenya when it gained independence in 1963.