Wahome Mutahi

Wahome Mutahi (24 October 1954 – 22 July 2003) was a beloved humourist from Kenya. He was popularly known as Whispers after the name of the column he wrote for The Daily Nation from 1982 to 2003, offering a satirical view of the trials and tribulations of Kenyan life.

Mutahi was equally well known in theatre where he wrote and acted in English- and Kikuyu-language plays that caricatured Kenya's society and politics using his company Igiza Productions. A memorial bust of the late Wahome has been erected at the Kenya National Theatre. Outside of Kenya, he wrote humour columns for Ugandan publications The Monitor and Lugambo.

Among his books are Three Days on the Cross which won the prestigious Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature (1992), Jail Bugs, Doomsday, and the immensely popular How To Be a Kenyan, based on his newspaper columns. Others include The Miracle Merchants, Mr Canta, Hassan the Genie, The Ghost of Garba Tula and Just Wait and See.

In 1986 Mutahi was arrested with his brother Njuguna Mutahi and detained in the infamous Nyayo House torture chambers in Nairobi. He was charged with sedition and alleged association with the underground Mwakenya Movement and later transferred to Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. They were both released after fifteen months without ever being brought to trial. His imprisonment inspired him to write Three Days on the Cross and Jailbug.

In early 2003 Mutahi underwent what was supposed to be a routine, minor and painless operation at the Thika District Hospital to remove a lipoma from his back. He had been assured by a surgeon friend, who had offered to do the operation, that the procedure would take less than 15 minutes. Possibly because of a blunder by the anaesthesiologist, he went into a coma from which he never awoke. His family was waiting for his condition to improve before they could fly him to London for corrective neurosurgery.

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