Activist and author, Dr. Margaret Ogola, is honored on the Google homepage in Kenya to celebrate what would have been her 61st birthday on Wednesday. 

The Google Doodle design features a painted portrait of the Kenyan icon against a background of a purple sunset.

Dr. Ogola was born in Asembo, Kenya in 1958. Her first novel, The River and The Source, was released in 1995. The novel tells the story of four generations of women in Kenya as the social, political, and economic climate around them changes.

The book eventually became part of the curriculum in Kenyan schools. It has also won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Africa.

Tragically, Dr. Ogola passed away at the young age of 53 from cancer.

Dr. Margaret Ogola's words still provide a sense of inspiration for all those who followed her work. At a conference in Beijing in 1995, Ogola said, "Unless we recognize that each individual is irrepeatable (sic) and valuable by virtue of simply being conceived human, we cannot begin to talk about human rights. The accidental attributes that we acquire such as color, sex, intelligence, economic circumstances, physical or mental disability should not be used as an excuse to deprive a person of life."

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