Latest news with #MauMau
The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘In his company you could not be lazy': remembering my friend Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Among the African writers who emerged in the middle of the 20th century, the most political undoubtedly was Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Born in Kenya while it was still under British rule he was anti-colonialist, a communist, anti-dictatorial, and an almost militant proponent for African languages being used for African literature. His best works exist at the interface between the political and the personal. His first book of essays, Homecoming, is at once engaging and polemical. His early novels Weep Not, Child and A Grain of Wheat look at the impact of colonialism and the Mau Mau rebellion on individual lives. He was strangely at his best with the personal and the intimate, but his reputation grew more from his political stances – first against the British government, then against the dictatorship in Kenya in the 70s. He was jailed not for a thundering political text but for a play in Kikuyu called I Will Marry When I Want. In prison he wrote his memoir on toilet paper. When I first met him I expected to meet a socialist firebrand but instead encountered a genial, engaging man who had read some of my writing and asked about my influences. I was genuinely surprised by his warmth, his humour and his friendliness. He was at ease with white as well as black people. He loved a good drink, enjoyed conversation and had a genuine love for literary small talk. I first knew him after his release from prison during his time in London. At the African Centre he would have a coterie of political acolytes and well wishers who wanted to ease his time in exile. I had conversations with him about literature. He was interested in my reading. I remember one particular conversation. At the time I had only published my first two novels and I was in my early 20s. 'What novels do you read?' he asked. 'All of you.' 'Who else?' 'Tolstoy, Dostoevsky.' 'Which Dostoevsky?' 'Crime and Punishment.' 'Did you read that before or after you wrote your second novel?' And I froze. The question made me aware of something that I had not considered before: the implied relationship between the greatness of the books you have read and the quality of the books you write after reading them. I suddenly felt ashamed that the novel I had written did not do that reading justice. Whatever answer I gave was a chastened one. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion Ngũgĩ would paralyse you with an innocent-seeming question. They said Bertolt Brecht was like that too. In his gentle way Ngũgĩ compelled you to come up with cogent answers to the probing remarks he made about African literature and the question of language, a question of authenticity. In his company you could not be lazy. He also took an interest in my pool game and would often place bets on me in pubs in Covent Garden. Between frames we would talk about books. He had an almost mystical awe for what Achebe achieved in Things Fall Apart. Looking back to a time when the only literature being taught at universities was Dickens and Conrad et al, he made me feel how thrilling it was to read for the first time this novel that had found a language to express the yearning of Africans for their own story. By that time he had become a slightly portly figure with interrogative eyes and ready laughter. He tended to wear African tops and western trousers. One got the feeling with him that he had done a lot of his political thinking early but was open to the discoveries that his work led him into. He began his writing life as James Ngugi, and metamorphosed into Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. He began writing in English and ended by writing in Kikuyu, often having to translate himself. His anti-capitalist stance didn't stop him becoming one of the most feted African writers in America. And in all of this, the one constant was that he remained a likable man without pretensions, and always with a feeling for the common people. Towards the end of his life, he became a perennial favourite to win the Nobel prize, and like Borges, had to endure the rise and fall of expectation every October. Family tragedy also marred his later years. But perhaps my fondest memory is of sitting with him in a Cambridge college during a Callaloo conference. We began talking about music and literature and he surprised me by saying that he was learning to play the piano for the first time. He was then in his mid-70s. He talked about the wonder of going from being unable to play a note to being able, within a few months, to play some Mozart, Chopin and Bach. It was very affecting to hear this seasoned revolutionary take on a youthful glow as he talked about this new-won skill. There happened to be a piano in a corner of the hall, and we went over. To this day I can still see him with a light smile on his face as the Bach notes tinkled into the hall.
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenyan author who reckoned with colonial legacy, dies at 87
Celebrated Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o, whose sharp criticisms of post-independence elites led to his jailing and two decade in exile, has died at the age of 87, Kenya's president said. Shaped by an adolescence where he witnessed the armed Mau Mau struggle for independence from Britain, Thiong'o took aim in his writings at colonial rule and the Kenyan elites who inherited many of its privileges. He was arrested in December 1977 and detained for a year without charge in a maximum security prison after peasants and workers performed his play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want). Angered by the play's criticism of inequalities in Kenyan society, the authorities sent three truckloads of police to raze the theatre, Thiong'o later said. He went into exile in 1982 after he said he learnt of plans by president Daniel arap Moi's security services to arrest and kill him. He went on to become a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California-Irvine. Thiong'o ended his exile in 2004 after Moi left office after more than two decades in power marked by widespread arrests, killings and torture of political opponents. Kenya's President William Ruto paid tribute to Thiong'o after his death in the US after reports of a struggle with ill health in recent years. 'The towering giant of Kenyan letters has put down his pen for the final time,' Ruto said on his X account. 'Always courageous, he made an indelible impact on how we think about our independence, social justice and the uses and abuses of political and economic power.' Though Thiong'o said on returning to Kenya in 2004 that he bore no grudge against Moi, he told Reuters in an interview three years later that Kenyans should not forget the abuses of the era. 'The consequences of 22 years of dictatorship are going to be with us for a long time and I don't like to see us returning to that time,' he said. Thiong'o's best-known works included his debut novel Weep Not Child, which chronicled the Mau Mau struggle, and Devil on the Cross, which he wrote on toilet paper while in prison. In the 1980s, he abandoned English to write in his mother tongue Gikuyu, saying he was bidding farewell to the imported language of Kenya's former colonial master.
Indian Express
2 days ago
- General
- Indian Express
Remembering Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: Freedom, he wrote
Ngugi wa Thiong'o was in his teens when he returned from his elite British-run English-medium school one day to find his family home in Kenya razed by the colonial rulers in response to the Mau Mau uprising. Only a hedge they had planted remained, he later wrote in In the House of the Interpreter (2012), 'beyond it our homestead is a rubble of burnt dry mud, splinters of wood, and grass'. It was a moment that never left him, becoming the seed of a quiet rebellion that would eventually make him one of Africa's fiercest literary minds and unwavering moral voices. The writer, 87, who died on May 28, wrote to rebuild what had been destroyed — not just in his village, but across a continent's collective memory. Thiong'o's life was shaped by the winds of colonialism, repression, resilience, and the corruption-laden aftermath of independence in Kenya. But he refused to be blown off course. He wrote as if words were weapons to carve out a space for truth. His Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first major novel in English by an East African writer. But after imprisonment without trial — punishment for a play he had co-written in his native tongue Gikuyu on corruption — Ngugi turned away from English altogether. In a prison cell, he began Devil on the Cross (1980), scribbled on toilet paper, the first modern novel written in his mother tongue. From then on, he insisted that African stories be told in African languages. Thiong'o's continued exposition of malfeasance in post-colonial Kenya earned him the wrath of political gatekeepers. Exile followed, but so did global recognition, as he became a lodestar for generations of African writers — among them Nigerian greats Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. If there's one lesson Thiong'o leaves behind, it is that the fight for freedom does not end with the fall of a regime. And that the stories of a people, told in their own words, are acts of liberation in themselves.
The Wire
2 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.
Daily Maverick
2 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kenyan author who reckoned with colonial legacy, dies at 87
Thiong'o, who took aim at colonial rule and Kenyan elites, spent years in jail and exile after being threatened. He was hailed as a 'towering giant of Kenyan letters'. Celebrated Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, whose sharp criticisms of post-independence elites led to his jailing and two decades in exile, has died at 87, Kenya's president said. Shaped by an adolescence where he witnessed the armed Mau Mau struggle for independence from Britain, Thiong'o took aim in his writings at colonial rule and the Kenyan elites who inherited many of its privileges. He was arrested in December 1977 and detained for a year without charge in a maximum security prison after peasants and workers performed his play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want). Angered by the play's criticism of inequalities in Kenyan society, the authorities sent three truckloads of police to raze the theatre, Thiong'o later said. He went into exile in 1982 after he said he had learnt of plans by President Daniel arap Moi's security services to arrest and kill him. He became a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California-Irvine. 'Indelible impact' Thiong'o ended his exile in 2004 after Moi left office, after more than two decades in power marked by widespread arrests, killings and torture of political opponents. Kenya's President William Ruto paid tribute to Thiong'o after his death in the US, following reports of a struggle with ill health in recent years. 'The towering giant of Kenyan letters has put down his pen for the final time,' Ruto said on his X account. 'Always courageous, he made an indelible impact on how we think about our independence, social justice as well as the uses and abuses of political and economic power.' Although Thiong'o said upon returning to Kenya in 2004 that he bore no grudge against Moi, he told Reuters in an interview three years later that Kenyans should not forget the abuses of the era. 'The consequences of 22 years of dictatorship are going to be with us for a long time and I don't like to see us returning to that period,' he said. Thiong'o's best-known works included his debut novel Weep Not, Child, which chronicled the Mau Mau struggle, and Devil on the Cross, which he wrote on toilet paper while in prison. In the 1980s, he abandoned English to write in his mother tongue, Gikuyu, saying he was bidding farewell to the imported language of Kenya's former colonial master. DM
