Latest news with #Gikuyu
The Wire
21 hours ago
- The Wire
How Ngugi wa Thiong'o Turned Away from English to the Language of His People to Write Great Literature
Rarely do fiction writers pay a price as heavy as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) did for writing. He lost his Nairobi University job, was imprisoned, spent many years in exile, was attacked and robbed, and his wife was sexually assaulted when he returned to Kenya on a visit. Tragedy and hardship were not new to Ngugi. When he was young, and Kenya was a British colony, one of his brothers was shot dead because, being deaf, he did not hear the English officer's command to stop. Ngugi had lived through the historic Mau Mau rebellion, during which his village, Limuru, was destroyed by British soldiers. His mother was arrested and spent three months in solitary confinement. All these experiences fed Ngugi's hatred for colonialism and imperialism, turned him towards Marxism and fueled his creativity. Turning adversity to advantage, Ngugi wrote his novel Devil on the Cross on rolls of toilet paper while in jail. Ngugi wa Thiongo's birth name was James Ngugi. In 1938, when he was born, Kenya was an English colony. By the time he changed his name around 1970, Kenya was a formally independent nation. But colonial legacies are sticky, stubborn and persistent. In 1977, after seventeen years of writing in English, Ngugi abandoned it and began writing in his native language, Gikuyu. This was hardly easy. English was the colonialists' language, but it was also an international language. Writing in English potentially gave access to a readership that was spread across the world. English also had the paraphernalia that enables circulation of literary works – publishing houses, journals and newspapers, university courses, etc. – that native languages such as Gikuyu lacked. Many languages of the colonial subjects did not even have a script. Also read: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: The Kenyan Icon Who Wrote For Freedom Till the Very End Ngugi went a step further. In his view, 'language was the most important vehicle through which [colonial] power fascinated and held the soul prisoner. The bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.' This also had a class dimension. African literature written in European languages was 'the literature of the petty-bourgeoisie.' And while it was true that this class was far from homogeneous, ranging from agents of imperialism to nationalists or even socialists, and that the literature they produced did play a part in projecting a dignified image of Africa and Africans, the class roots of this literature yet constrained it. For Ngugi, there was no alternative. The language of the coloniser and the imperialist had to be abandoned. The language of his people – the masses of people, the peasantry and the working class – had to be embraced. But languages are not like shirts, you can't just toss one aside and wear another. 'Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture.' His first work in Gikuyu was a play, I Will Marry When I Want (in collaboration with Ngugi wa Mirii), followed by the novel Devil on the Cross , the musical play Mother Sing for Me , and several other works, including his 2006 opus, Wizard of the Crow . How the play came to be is a fascinating story. One day in 1976, a woman from Kamiriithu village came to Ngugi with a request: 'We hear you have a lot of education and that you write books. Why don't you give some of that education to the village?' There was a somewhat decrepit youth centre in the village, she said, and they wanted help to revive it. She visited Ngugi every week for the next month or so, till he relented. This is how he came to be associated with the Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre. At the centre, theatre was to be part of a larger cultural enterprise – the revival of pride in being Kenyan, in being African. Spreading literacy was one part of this revival. Theatre was the other. But they had no theatre – that is, an auditorium or playhouse. The peasants of Kamiriithu cleared an empty area and erected a stage, which was no more than a mud platform, and created makeshift seating for the audience. As Ngugi write later, 'Theatre is not a building. People make theatre. Their life is the very stuff of drama.' But what language do you use when making plays around the lives of ordinary, working people? Not a language that sounds foreign to the people, that is alien to their history. Ngugi, again: 'It was Kamiriithu which forced me to turn to Gikuyu and hence into what for me has amounted to 'an epistemological break' with my past.' The story of I Will Marry When I Want (original title: Ngaahika Ndeenda ) by Ngugi wa Thiongo and Ngugi wa Mirii revolves around the proletarianisation of the peasantry in a recently colonised country. In Ngugi's words, the play 'shows the way the Kiguunda family, a poor peasant family, which has to supplement their subsistence on their one and a half acres with the sale of their labour, is finally deprived of even the one and a half acres by a multinational consortium of Japanese and Euro-American industrialists and bankers aided by the native comprador landlords and businessmen.' If this sounds a bit like the 1952 Bimal Roy film Do Bigha Zameen , that's not because the two Ngugis had seen it, but because the experiences of ex-colonies were similar in many ways. Since the rehearsals of the play took place in the open, many villagers would sit around watching. In time, many of them knew the entire play by heart. They would bring their families and friends, and gradually, pretty much the entire village had seen the play before it opened. Many of them gave critical feedback and suggestions. Ngugi, used to the idea of a 'premiere' where a play is 'unveiled' in front of an admiring audience, wondered if anyone at all would come to watch when shows actually began. When the play opened on October 2, 1977, it was an immediate success. The villagers of Kamiriithu came, of course, but not so much as spectators as hosts. It was their play, and they had spread the word far and wide to other villages. The play became part of a spontaneous festival, a mela. One time, it rained so hard that the actors had to stop and the spectators had to take shelter. This happened three times. Yet, every time the play resumed, they found that no one from the audience had left. The play ran every day, drawing new and repeat audiences every day. It was a triumph. Till the Kenyan government banned any further performances of it on November 16, 1977. Ngugi was arrested on the last day of 1977 and spent the whole of the following year in a maximum security prison. Ngugi wa Thiong'o with the author, Sudhanva Deshpande. I met Ngugi in February 2018, and we spent several hours together in Kolkata and Delhi. I was invited by Seagull Books, his publisher, to engage him in a public conversation at the Victoria Memorial . I also interviewed him for Newsclick in Delhi. In these recorded interactions, I asked the questions and he answered. Off camera, though, it was the opposite. He was endlessly curious – about India (which he was visiting for the second time); about literature in various Indian languages; about India's relations with Pakistan; about the Indian Left movement and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in particular; about Jana Natya Manch, the theatre group I work with, and its founder Safdar Hashmi, who was murdered while performing; about how I came into theatre and became part of the communist movement; about my father, who was also a playwright; about the food we ate; and on and on. We interacted again, briefly, this time on email, when LeftWord Books published a set of essays called The East Was Read: Socialist Culture in the Third World , edited by Vijay Prashad. He wrote an essay on how the Soviet Union helped him when he was writing his novel Petals of Blood . The book has an essay by Deepa Bhasthi on her communist grandfather's library. Bhasthi recently won the International Booker Prize, for which Ngugi was also nominated a few years ago. In fact, he is the only person to have been nominated for a translation of his own work, and the only writer to have been nominated for a work in an African language. I asked Ngugi how on earth he wrote on toilet paper, which is so flimsy and highly absorbent. He laughed. 'Not the toilet paper they gave us in jail. It was hard and thick. It was meant to hurt our bums. I used it to hurt theirs.' As the world bids farewell to this giant of world literature, it is this spirit, indomitable and playfully subversive, that will continue to inspire. Sudhanva Deshpande is an actor and publisher. He is the author of 'Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi' (LeftWord Books 2020).
Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Decolonising minds, reimagining literature
Every year, a ritual precedes the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Several names of possible winners dominate discussions on the web. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o invariably featured in these conversations, but never won. Let us not equate awards with literary greatness, though. At the same time, it must also be acknowledged that the lack of the award did not prevent us from reading Thiong'o. We gravitated to the author and his ideas for his radical politics and theorisation on the use of language especially in post-colonial nations such as his own Kenya and India in our case. Ideas can travel without the patronage and fanfare of big awards. Thiong'o and the enduring popularity of his seminal text, Decolonising the Mind, is a case in point. Thiong'o spoke about decolonisation before it became a symposia favourite across university departments. He was a torchbearer in every sense. Much like Frantz Fanon, his intellectual mentor in some ways. Thiong'o was a lifelong advocate for an exploration of our own languages, stories, writers and a steadfast critic of Eurocentrism and linguistic imperialism. For those who may not know, he even shed his birth name James and chose Ngũgĩ in his native Gikuyu — Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o meaning Ngũgĩ, son of Thiong'o. He has written extensively and expansively about the country of his birth and the birth of a writer in his memoir series — Dreams in a Time of War, In the House of the Interpreter and Birth of a Dream Weaver. It is in the last and final instalment of his memoirs where Thiong'o begins to reminisce about the birth of an author and the stories that he formed while studying at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. It is also here that he first met Chinua Achebe. In obituaries that have appeared since the announcement of his death, he is often referred to as an African writer. There's no debating his place of origin but Thiong'o is also a world writer who inspired and shaped thinking, writing, reading, and critical analysis in many corners of the world. Thiong'o did many radical things as a writer but the most important is his decision to quit writing in English around 1977 and switch to writing in his mother tongue, Gikuyu. This happened following his year-long stint in a Kenyan prison after the staging of his controversial play which highlighted inequities in Kenyan society. In Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary (1981) he recounts the time spent as a political prisoner. Though recounting a personal experience, Thiong'o connects it to the larger political situation in Kenya by accusing the then government of being controlled by 'foreign capital' and 'foreign economic interests'. He said the Kenyan elites behaved as neo-colonialists. He was finally exiled from Kenya and lived in the UK and the US for the rest of his life. Not enough is often said or written about his fiction. Several of his novels are astonishing such as Weep Not, Child, A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood amongst others. To many of us in South Asia, his non-fiction is more popular owing to the strong anti-colonial ideas they helped to develop. Having said that, one must also acknowledge that Thiong'o was a very different fiction writer from Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka, the other two luminaries of 20th century African literature. Both Achebe and Soyinka focused extensively on the tension between tradition and the modern in African societies. Thiong'o, on the other hand, used every opportunity to unravel the pitfalls of colonialism and capitalism rather explicitly in his fiction. The three writers even openly argued in public during a conference in Uganda in 1962. Thiong'o argued that literature written in indigenous African languages should be called African Literature. Achebe and Soyinka opposed this idea and found Thiong'o's position flawed. It is not surprising that Thiong'o helped us to understand the virtues of translation through his speeches, essays, commentaries on the role of translation in a globalised world. Translation helps cultures to be in conversation with each other. He equated translation with democracy where everyone has a voice and representation or ought to have one. Translation provides that opportunity to all languages and writers of the world. He also self-translated his last novel, Wizard of the Crow, to English (from Gikuyu). Thiong'o's writings will continue to shape debates and discussions about the use of language and our reading of literature. His work provokes many questions. What constitutes the practice of decolonisation in current times? Is decolonisation being held hostage by academic lobbies in the West? Shouldn't decolonisation lead to new forms of storytelling in a multilingual nation like ours? Thiong'o created his own path. As readers, critics, students, and followers of his work, we should create ours. That's the best tribute for a writer you admire. Kunal Ray teaches literature at FLAME University, Pune. The views expressed are personal.
Indian Express
3 days ago
- General
- Indian Express
When Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o met Tagore
The first thing that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o — who passed away on May 28 in the United States — asked for when he met us in Kolkata in February 2018 was to visit the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore. Not an unusual request from a writer — but for him, it was deeply personal. I had worked as an editor on a collection of his essays which Seagull Books had published a few years earlier, so the honour of accompanying him to north Kolkata's Jorasanko Thakurbari fell to me. As we stepped into the compound of the house — a veritable 18th-century palace — Ngũgĩ's jaw dropped, quite literally. 'This is Tagore's house? So massive?' I still remember the blend of shock and amusement on the 80-year-old writer's face. During the car ride to north Kolkata, Ngũgĩ told me how he'd grown up outside a small Kenyan town under British colonial rule, in a hut made of mud, wood and straw. His early educational tools consisted of a single slate and some chalk, shared with his many siblings — a sharp contrast to Tagore's privileged upbringing. But Ngũgĩ's father believed in 'good' education, which, then as now, meant an English one. While some of his siblings got mired in Kenya's violent struggle for independence, Ngũgĩ enrolled in the British-run high school designed to shape Africans in the image of their colonisers. As East Africa threw off British rule in the early 1960s, Ngũgĩ began writing. His first novels, written in English, used the coloniser's language to tell the stories of the colonised — which seemed like a rebellion in itself. Novel after novel drew widespread acclaim and established Ngũgĩ as a leading African writer. But by the 1970s, a profound shift was taking root in him. As we wandered through the grand corridors of Jorasanko, moving slowly from one vast room to the next, Ngũgĩ explained why he had wanted to visit Tagore's house. Kenya had overthrown colonial rule only to fall under a homegrown dictatorship. In 1977, Ngũgĩ co-wrote a play whose bold critique of the regime angered the authorities, who responded by locking him up in a maximum-security prison. It was there, Ngũgĩ told me, that he stumbled upon a newspaper article that summed up a key idea of Tagore's: 'You may learn a lot of languages, but unless you speak and write in your mother tongue, nothing is of value'. That idea was a lightning bolt. It forged Ngũgĩ's commitment to uphold indigenous African languages. He began writing in his mother tongue Gikuyu, starting with a novel composed on prison-issued toilet paper, which he managed to smuggle out. He understood the reach of English, though, so he translated his own Gikuyu works, beginning with the prison novel later published as Devil on the Cross (1980) — a practice he continued for the rest of his life. Ngũgĩ became a language warrior, tirelessly championing indigenous African languages, advocating not only for their literatures but also for translations — not just into English or French so the wider world could listen, but also between African languages, too. Translation, he believed, allowed languages to speak to one another, breaking down the colonial hierarchy of tongues. In his book The Language of Languages (2023), Ngũgĩ writes: 'There are two ways by which different languages and cultures can relate to one another: As hierarchies of unequal power relationships (the imperial way), or as a network of equal give-and-take (the democratic way).' Unlike most of his contemporaries, Ngũgĩ rejected the idea that English could be considered an indigenous language by its non-native speakers: 'The colonised trying to claim the coloniser's language is the sign of the success of enslavement,' he said in a recent interview to The Guardian. But his critique of colonial systems was not limited to language. At an event at Seagull Books in Kolkata, when a delegation of Adivasi activists from Jharkhand came to meet him, his first question was: 'Scheduled Tribes they call you — what do you think of this word tribe?' In his book Secure the Base (2016), he notes: 'A group of 3,00,000 Icelanders constitutes a nation while 30 million Ibos make up a tribe. And yet… a tribe fulfils all the criteria of shared history, geography, economic life, language and culture that are used to define a nation.' That day, the Adivasi activists and Ngũgĩ reached a shared conclusion: India's indigenous people are nothing less than 'a non-sovereign nation'. Working in the English-language publishing world in India, I've had the honour of meeting countless authors. Too often, the conversations revolve around comparisons — who's published in London or New York, whose advance is bigger, who's invited to which festival, what kind of hotel rooms they're given — an eternal picnic of vanities. In this world so steeped in hierarchies, it is both comforting and reassuring to meet writers like Ngũgĩ, whose sole allegiance was to telling the good story, and the right story. Greatness and humility are uneasy companions. Will there be great writers in the future? Certainly. Will they be as humble as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o? That's a harder question. Samaddar is an editor at Seagull Books, Kolkata
The Wire
4 days ago
- General
- The Wire
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: The Kenyan Icon Who Wrote For Freedom Till the Very End
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Culture Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: The Kenyan Icon Who Wrote For Freedom Till the Very End Nandini C. Sen 36 minutes ago Ngugi chose to write in his mother tongue Gikuyu and argued that his stories need to reach his own people and stir their nationalist consciousness. Ngũgĩ-wa-Thiong'o (1938-2025). Photo: Wikimedia Commons Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now 'The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress.' ― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o The world of literature and activism lost one of its best with the demise of the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Ngugi was that rare writer who stood for everything he preached – respect for women, love for the mother tongue, standing up against the colonial mindset, standing up for one's rights and revising the historical wrongs of the British Colonial regime. This came at a great price – incarceration and banishment from his home country Kenya and a lifelong war with the powers that be. I was introduced to Ngugi's Decolonising the Mind (1986) in my Master's class at JNU and it gave me a whole new way to look at the world as I knew it. I realised that the 'freedom' that I had taken for granted was not something one could take lightly. It was something one had to fight for constantly. One also learnt how the nature of colonialism had changed – it was no longer a story of the White dominance over the Blacks/Browns but an insidious takeover by the corporates who enslaved our minds and held us hostage. This colonisation had a worse stranglehold because it was difficult to identify the coloniser since they now looked like us. Ngugi shot into fame with his debut novel Weep Not, Child (1964), the first novel to be published from East Africa. Ngugi's oeuvre can be compared only to that of Chinua Achebe's who was responsible for reading the manuscripts of The River Between and Weep Not, Child which were published by Heinemann with Achebe as its advisory editor. It was with Achebe that Ngugi's famous 'language debate' gained prominence and became a staple for every student of postcolonial studies. While Achebe chooses to write in English in spite of it being the language of the colonisers, Ngugi argues against it and chooses to write in his mother tongue Gikuyu. Ngugi argues that his stories need to reach his own people and stir their nationalist consciousness. To this effect he and Micere Mugo wrote the famous play on the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi. The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976) taught in Delhi University, until very recently, recreates the indomitable courage of the Mau Mau revolutionary and his right-hand person – a woman warrior. While Kimathi remains in jail, it is 'the woman' – representing Kenyan mothers – who tries to free him and in turn train the next generation for the struggle. The role of Kenyan women in the Mau Mau movement (Kenyan freedom struggle) is a historical reality. Ngugi's female characters are strong, bold and determined – towering over the men in sheer brilliance. In his world view, the mothers of the nation rule supreme, challenging the existing stereotypes of dependent women. These women do not exist merely to take care of their home and hearth; they work towards nation-building. He creates them in the mould of Mother Africa, thus adhering towards the Negritude Movement. In A Grain of Wheat (1967), Ngugi writes about Wambui, who 'believed in the power of women to influence events, especially where men had failed to act, or seemed indecisive… Let therefore such men, she jeered, come forward, wear the women's skirts and aprons and give up their trousers to the women.' Wambui helps the Mau Mau warriors, and it is her conviction that her land can only be free once it is rid of the colonisers. Unlike many men who are seen to be supporting the British policies, Wambui is clear-headed about what is best for her people. About the dual nature of colonialism, Ngugi wrote, 'He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity.' Ngugi spent his entire life exposing this unholy trinity through his powerful writing. Ngugi, christened James Ngugi at birth, was one of the 28 children born to the four wives of his father in precolonial Kenya. Growing up, Ngugi witnessed the forced takeover of lands by the British imperialists; he was witness to multiple arrests and tortures his people were subjected to, and he also witnessed the harassment his own father had to face. It was then that he slowly realised that the colonial forces were there to destroy and not to build. His evolving worldview led him to give up his Christian name, and he started to go by the name of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. He argued that the English departments in Kenyan Universities should start to focus on the study of indigenous languages of Kenya. Challenging the 'centrality' of London and the 'othering' faced by colonised countries, Ngugi argued in favour of centring Africa and studying other cultures in relation to it. Ngugi was a strong advocate on Fanonist Marxism. 'Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people's experience in history.' writes Ngugi in Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature where he argues in favour of the indigenous languages because he sees language not merely as a means of communication but as a carrier and repository of culture. To this end, he gave up writing in English and wrote in his mother tongue Gikiyu. His co-authoring of a play in Gikiyu, I Will Marry When I Want (1977), which dealt with the controversial themes of poverty, gender, class and religion in the post-colonial context, led to his incarceration. While in his cell, where he was housed with other political prisoners, he wrote The Devil on The Cross (1980) on prison-issued toilet paper. It was here that he thought more closely about the language question and decided to continue writing only in Gikiyu. Ngugi was the first in his family to be educated, though he spent the better part of his life in exile, where he served as visiting professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University and later a professor of comparative literature and performance studies at New York University where he held the Erich Maria Remarque Chair. He served as distinguished professor of English and comparative literature and was the first director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine. Ngugi will continue to be missed. I was fortunate to be able to meet him in person at the African Literary Association Conference in Accra, Ghana, in 2008. A mild-mannered and unassuming person, he waxed lyrical about the unity of African cultures. Ngugi was deeply interested in India and in his novel The Wizard of the Crow, he mentions The Gita, the Upanishads and the women writers of India. A prolific writer and an activist till the very end, Ngugi was also a perpetual contender for the Nobel. Commenting on the current governments and drawing parallels, Ngugi wrote, 'Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb.' His words reflect what we see playing out in our modern societies, which allow for totalitarian regimes at the cost of the divisiveness of their people. Nandini C. Sen is a professor of English at Delhi University who specialises in Anglophone African Literature. Make a contribution to Independent Journalism Related News Ngugi wa Thiong'o, the Giant of African Literature, Dies at 87 Entries Invited For Third Edition of Rainbow Awards for Literature and Journalism The Politics of 'Heart Lamp' Is Profound, Urgent and Reflects the Lived Reality of Millions Interview | Tracing Maithili Writer Shivashankar Shrinivas's Literary Journey 'In Honour of William Shakespeare': Tagore in the Garden of Shakespeare's Birthplace A Decade of Living Dangerously: The Wire Marks its 10th Year with Pressing Unmute in Naya India Daud Haider, Bangladesh's First Poet to be Exiled, Passes Away at 73 Listen: India's Reaction to Turkey is Understandable, But We Should Not Give Up on Diplomacy with it 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' Is an Operatic and Reverential, but Bloated Farewell About Us Contact Us Support Us © Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Five things you should know about Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, one of Africa's greatest writers of all time
One of Africa's most celebrated authors Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o has passed away. The Kenyan writer and academic was 87 years old. Having published his first novel – Weep Not Child – in 1964, Ngũgĩ pursued a rich and acclaimed career as a writer, teacher and decolonial thinker. His last creative effort was Kenda Muiyuru (The Perfect Nine), a Gikuyu epic that was longlisted for the 2021 International Man Booker Prize. Kenyan academic and writer Peter Kimani sets out five things you should know about a legendary African writer. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is regarded as one of Africa's greatest writers of all time. He grew up in what became known as Kenya's White Highlands at the height of British colonialism. Unsurprisingly, his writing examines the legacy of colonialism and the intricate relationships between locals seeking economic and cultural emancipation and the local elites serving as agents of neo-colonisers. The great expectations for the new country, as captured in his seminal play, The Black Hermit, anticipated the disillusionment that followed. His fiction, from the foundational trilogy of Weep Not, Child, The River Between and A Grain of Wheat, amplify those expectations, before the optimism gives way in Petals of Blood, and is replaced by disillusionment. African fiction is fairly young. Ngũgĩ stands in the continent's pantheon of writers who started writing when Africa's decolonisation gained momentum. In a certain sense, the writers were involved in constructing new narratives that would define their people. But Ngũgĩ's recognition goes beyond his pioneering role at home: his writing resonates with many across Africa. One could also recognise his consistency at churning out high-quality stories about Africa's contemporary society. This he always did in a way that illustrates his commitment to equality and social justice. He has done much more, through scholarship. His treatise, Decolonising the Mind, now a foundational text in post-colonial studies, illustrates his versatility. His ability to spin the yarns while commenting on the politics that goes into literary production of marginal literature is a very rare combination. Finally, one could talk about Ngũgĩ's cultural and political activism. This precipitated his yearlong detention without trial in 1977. He attributed his detention to his rejection of English and embracing his Gikuyu language as his vehicle of expression. It's hard to pick a favourite from Ngũgĩ's over two dozen texts. But there is concurrence among critics that A Grain of Wheat, which was voted among Africa's best 100 novels at the turn of the last century, stands out for its stylistic experimentation and complexity of characters. Others consider the novel as the last signpost before Ngũgĩ's work became overly political. For other critics, it's Wizard of the Crow – which came out in 2004, after nearly two decades of waiting – that encapsulates his creative finesse. It utilises many literary tropes, including magical realism, and addresses the politics of African development and the shenanigans by the political elite to maintain the status quo. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages around the world. Without a doubt, Africa would be poorer without the efforts of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and other pioneering writers to tell the African story. He was an important figure in post-colonial studies. His constant questioning of the privileging of the English language and culture in Kenya's national discourse saw him lead a movement that led to the scrapping of the Department of English at the University of Nairobi – replaced by a Department of Literature that placed African literature and its diasporas at the centre of scholarship. Ngũgĩ remained active in writing even in old age. Among his later offerings was the third instalment of his memoir, Birth of a Dreamweaver that looks back on his years at Makerere University in Uganda. This is the period when he published his novels, Weep Not, Child and The River Between, while still an undergraduate. Also at this time he wrote the play, The Black Hermit, which was performed as part of Uganda's independence celebrations in 1962. In later years he was busy restoring his early works into Gikuyu, from the English language, which he bid farewell to in 1977, opting rather to write in his indigenous tongue. Ngũgĩ appeared on the list of favourites to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for a number of years. Since the workings of the Nobel award committee remain secret – the list of the committee's deliberations are kept secret for 50 years – it will be decades before we know why he was overlooked when so many felt he richly deserved the prize. This is an updated version of the article first published in 2016. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Peter Kimani, Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC) Read more: How ongoing deforestation is rooted in colonialism and its management practices 10 years ago Kenya set out to fix gender gaps in education – what's working and what still needs to be done Is this bad for my health? Kenyan study tests three types of warning labels on food Peter Kimani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
