Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Kenyan literary big who fought colonialism, dies at 87

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan author and novelist who critiqued colonial rule in addition to the post-colonial Kenyan authorities, died Wednesday in a hospital in Buford, Georgia. He was 87 years previous.

His daughter, Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, first introduced the information in a Fb submit.

Ngũgĩ’s writing profession started in 1964, with the novel Weep Not, Little one. It was a few household dwelling in colonial Kenya in the course of the Mau Mau rise up, which fought again in opposition to British rule. The ebook grew to become an essential a part of the African literary canon.

He was a robust advocate for writing in native African languages. His 1980 novel, Satan on the Cross, was revealed within the Gikuyu language. “One of the greatest tragedies of Africa is a complete disconnection of the elite from their linguistic base,” Ngũgĩ informed NPR in 2013.

“If Africa is going to contribute something original to the world, this must be rooted not only in the experience but also in the possibilities inherent in their own languages,” he mentioned. “We have been brought up to think of our many languages as something which is bad. And it’s the other way around. Monolingualism suffocates. It is a bad thing. Language contact is the oxygen of civilization.”

Ngũgĩ wrote Satan on the Cross whereas he was in jail. In 1977, he co-wrote a play in Gikuyu and produced it in an area theater in Kenya. And whereas he’d beforehand written work crucial of the Kenyan authorities in English, it was this play that bought him despatched to a most safety jail, although he was by no means charged.

Born in 1938 in Kenya when it was a British colony, he initially glided by James Ngugi. He went to Alliance Excessive Faculty, an elite boarding faculty, the place he bought to put on uniforms and play chess and skim Shakespeare whereas his household was coping with dwelling beneath colonial rule. He wrote about this pressure in his memoir Within the Home of the Interpreter. Within the 2013 NPR interview, he mentioned this expertise knowledgeable his resolution to put in writing in Gikuyu – that he was despatched to get an schooling in hopes of empowering his neighborhood.

“In reality, because of language, what happens is that the messenger who is sent by the community to go and fetch knowledge from wherever they can get it becomes a prisoner,” Ngũgĩ mentioned. He by no means returns, so to talk, metaphorically as a result of he stays throughout the language of his captivity.”

Ngũgĩ eventually became a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, and was founding director of the school’s International Center for Writing and Translation. He was the recipient of many literary awards, and was also constantly name-checked in discussions for a potential Nobel win. But in 2020, he told NPR that he appreciated what he called the “Nobel of the guts,” which is when someone reads his work and tells him it impacted them.

“The wonder concerning the Nobel of the guts is it’s totally democratic,” he said. “It is accessible to each author.”