Barbara Kimenye (19 December 1929 – 12 August 2012) was a British-born writer who became one of the most popular and best-selling children's authors in East Africa, where she lived from the 1950s. Her books sold more than a million copies, not just in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, but throughout English-speaking Africa. She wrote more than 50 titles and is best remembered for her Moses series, about a mischievous student at a boarding school for troublesome boys. A prolific writer widely regarded as "the leading writer of children's literature in Uganda", Kimenye was among the first Anglophone Ugandan women writers to be published in Central and East Africa. Her stories were extensively read in Uganda and beyond and were widely used in African schools. Although born in England, Kimenye considered herself Ugandan. Early life and education Barbara Clarke Holdsworth was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, the daughter of a Jewish-born Catholic convert mother and a West Indian doctor father. She attended Keighley girls' grammar school before moving to London to train as a nurse. There she met many students from East Africa, and married Bill Kimenye, son of a chief from Bukoba in what was then Tanganyika. They moved to his home town on Lake Victoria in the mid-1950s. After the marriage broke up, she moved to Uganda, where she had friends. In Kampala, she was reacquainted with many friends who had been some of the first Ugandan students in Britain. They were becoming the first leaders and professionals of what would soon be independent Uganda. The Kabaka of Buganda, Mutesa II of Buganda, invited her to work as a private secretary in his government. She lived near to the palace compound with her two sons, Christopher (Topha) and David (Daudi). During that time, her family became close to the royal family. She moved to Nairobi, Kenya, in 1965 to work on the Daily Nation, and later The EastAfrican. She lived in Nairobi until 1975 when, with both sons in England, she moved to London. There she worked for Brent Council as a race relations adviser, while continuing to write. She assiduously followed political developments in a disrupted Uganda and played an active role supporting exile groups opposed to the rule of Idi Amin, and later the second Milton Obote regime. In 1986, with the overthrow of Obote, she returned to Uganda. She was to spend a further three