Charles Mangua (born in Nyeri, 1939 – 20 March 2021) was a Kenyan fiction writer. His novels explore, among other issues, the "hardship and urban poverty" experienced by ordinary people in places such as Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Mangua's style was irreverent and often humorous. His early works, Son of Woman (1971) and A Tail in the Mouth (1972), sold more copies than any previous works of literature published in East Africa. His work had an influence on other Kenyan writers and he was awarded the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature for A Tail in the Mouth.