Dr. Margaret A. Ogola (1958-2011) was a renowned Kenyan author, pediatrician, and the medical director of Cottolengo Hospice which treated HIV and AIDS orphans in Nairobi. She won the 1995 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for this first novel, and was the recipient of the WCF Familias Award for Humanitarian Service at the 1999 World Congress of Families in Geneva.