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introduction
Kenyan writer
is
writer
novelist
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Kenya
Type
academy
literature
gender
masculine
birth
January 5, 1938, Kamirithu
Age
83 years
family
Children:
Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Gikuyu pronunciation: [ᵑɡoɣe wá ðiɔŋɔ]; born 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan writer who formerly worked in English and is now based in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, short stories and essays, from literary and social criticism to children’s literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu language magazine Mũtĩiri. In 1977, Ngũgĩ began a new form of theater in his native Kenya, aimed at freeing the theater process from what he consered “the general mdle- education system”. by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances. His project aimed to ‘demystify’ the theatrical process and avo the ‘alienation process [which] produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers’ which, according to Ngũgĩ, fosters passivity in ‘common people’. Although Ngaahika Ndeenda was a commercial success, it was shut down by the authoritarian Kenyan regime six weeks after it opened. Ngũgĩ was subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, the artist was released from prison and fled Kenya. In the USA he taught for several years at Yale University and since then also at New York University with a double professorship for comparative literature and performance studies and at the University of California, Irvine. Ngũgĩ was often seen as a good candate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His son is the author Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ.
Biography
Ngũgĩ was born in Kamiriithu near Limuru in Kiambu District, Kenya of Kikuyu descent and was baptized James Ngugi. His family became involved in the Mau Mau War; his half-brother Mwangi was active in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, and his mother was tortured at the Kamiriithu Home Guard post. He attended Alliance High School. He received a B.A. in English from Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda, 1963; A play by him, The Black Hermit, was produced in Kampala in 1962 while he was training.
Ngũgĩ published his first novel Weep Not, Child in 1964. It was the first English-language novel by a writer from East Africa. His second novel, The River Between (1965), published while he was a student at the University of Leeds in England, was set in the Mau Mau Rebellion and described an unhappy romance between Christians and non-Christians. The River Between is currently on the curriculum of Kenya’s national secondary school.
His novel A Grain of Wheat (1967) marked his turn to Fanonist Marxism. He then renounced English, Christianity and the name of James Ngugi as a colonialist; he changed his name back to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and began writing in his native Gikuyu and Swahili.
In 1976 he helped set up the Kamiriithu Community Educational and Cultural Center which, among other things, organized African theater in the region. The uncensored political message of his 1977 play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) prompted then-Vice Present of Kenya Daniel arap Moi to order his arrest. During his incarceration in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Ngũgĩ wrote the first modern novel in Gikuyu, Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ (Devil on the Cross), on toilet paper issued by the prison.
After his release, he was not reinstated to his job as a professor at Nairobi University and his family was harassed. Because of his publications about the injustices of the dictatorial government of the time, Ngugi and his family had to live in exile. Only when Arap Moi was voted out 22 years later was she safe to return.
His later works include Detained, his prison diary (1981), Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), an essay arguing that African writers express themselves in their mother tongues rather than in European languages, in order to abandoning lingering colonial ties and building authentic African literature, and Matigari (1987), one of his most famous works, a satire based on a Gikuyu folk tale.
In 1992 Ngũgĩ became Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University, where he held the Erich Maria Remarque Chair. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine.
On August 8, 2004, Ngũgĩ returned to Kenya as part of a month-long tour of East Africa. On August 11, robbers broke into his high-security apartment: they mugged Ngũgĩ, sexually assaulted his wife and stole various valuables. Ngũgĩ has since returned to America, and in the summer of 2006, American publisher Random House published his first new novel in almost two decades, Wizard of the Crow, translated into English by the author of Gikuyu.
On November 10, 2006, Ngũgĩ was harassed by an employee at the Hotel Vitale on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and ordered to leave the hotel. The event caused a public outcry and angered both African Americans and members of the African diaspora living in America, prompting an apology from the hotel.
His most recent books are Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance, a collection of essays published in 2009 that makes the case for the crucial role of African languages in the “resurrection of African memory”, and two autobiographical works: Dreams in a Time of War: a Childhood Memoir (2010) and In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (2012).
Awards and honours
1973 Lotus Prize for Literature.
2001 International Nonino Prize for Literature.
2009: Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.
2012 National Book Critics Circle Award (Autobiography Finalist) for In the House of the Interpreter
.
2014 Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award for Philosophical Literature.
2016 Park Kyong-ni Prize.
Honorary degrees
University of Dar es Salaam, Honorary Doctorate in Literature, November 2013.
University of Bayreuth, honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h.c.), May 5, 2014 .
Rollyson, Carl Edmund; Magill, Frank Northen (June 2003). Critical Examination of Drama: Jane Martin – Lennox Robinson. Salem Press. p. 2466. ISBN 978-1-58765-107-6. Retrieved November 25, 2011.
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“Some of the Prize Winners”. Nonino Distillatori S.p.A. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
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^ “Honorary doctorate from the University of Bayreuth for Professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (German)”. University of Bayreuth. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
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“Ngugi Wa Thiong’o” Booker Prize Foundation. Retrieved October 22, 2016
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‘James Kelman is Britain’s hope for Man Booker international prize’ The Guardian. Retrieved October 22, 2016
.
John Williams (January 14, 2012). “National Book Critics Circle names finalists for 2012 award.” The New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2013.
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“The Nicolas Guillén Prize for Philosophical Literature”. Caribbean Philosophical Association. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
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“Ngugi Wa Thiongo Wins 6th Pak Kyong-ni Literary Prize”. donga.com. September 21, 2016. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
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“43. Graduation” (PDF). University of Dar es Salaam. November 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
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List of works
The Black Hermit, 1963 (drama).
Don’t cry, child, 1964, Heinemann, 1987, Macmillan 2005, ISBN 1-4050-7331-4.
The river between, Heinemann 1965, Heinemann 1989, ISBN 0-435-90548-1.
A Grain of Wheat, 1967 (1992), ISBN 0-14-118699-2.
This Time Tomorrow (three tracks including the title track “The Reels” and “The Wound in the Heart”), c. 1970
Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics, Heinemann, 1972, ISBN 0-435-18580-2.
A Meeting in the Dark (1974).
Secret Lives and Other Stories, 1976, Heinemann, 1992, ISBN 0-435-90975-4.
The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (Play), 1976, ISBN 0-435-90191-5, African Publishing Group, ISBN 0-949932-45-0 (with Micere Githae Mugo and Njaka).
Ngaahika Ndeenda: Ithaako ria ngerekano (I Will Marry When I Want), 1977 (drama; with Ngugi wa Mirii), Heinemann Educational Books (1980).
Petals of Blood (1977) Penguin, 2002, ISBN 0-14-118702-6.
Caitaani mutharaba-Ini (Devil on the Cross), 1980.
Writers in Politics: Essays, 1981, ISBN 978-0-85255-541-5 (UK), ISBN 978-0-435-08985-6 (US).
Education for a National Culture, 1981.
Imprisoned: A Writer’s Prison Diary, 1981.
Devil on the Cross (English translation by Caitaani mutharaba-Ini), Heinemann, 1982, ISBN 0-435-90200-8.
Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya, 1983.
Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, 1986, ISBN 978-0-85255-501-9 (UK), ISBN 978-0-435-08016-7 (US).
Mother, sing for me, 1986.
Writing Against Neocolonialism, 1986.
Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus (Njamba Nene na Mbaathi i Mathagu), 1986 (children’s book).
Matigari ma Njiruungi, 1986.
Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief (Njamba Nene na Chibu King’ang’i), 1988 (children’s book).
Matigari (translated into English by Wangui wa Goro), Heinemann, 1989, Africa World Press 1994, ISBN 0-435-90546-5.
Njamba Nene’s Pistol (Bathitoora ya Njamba Nene), (Children’s Book), 1990, Africa World Press, ISBN 0-86543-081-0.
Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedom, Heinemann, 1993, ISBN 978-0-435-08079-2 (US) ISBN 978-0-85255-530-9 (UK).
Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: The Performance of Literature and Power in Post-Colonial Africa (The Clarendon Lectures in English Literature 1996), Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-818390-9.
Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow), 2004, East African Educational Publishers, ISBN 9966-25-162-6.
Wizard of the Crow, 2006, Secker, ISBN 1-84655-034-3.
Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance, Basic Civitas Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-465-00946-6.
Dreams in Wartime: Memories of Childhood, Harvill Secker, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84655-377-6.
In the Interpreter’s House: A Memoir, Pantheon, 2012, ISBN 978-0-30790-769-1.
Birth of a Dreamweaver: Memoirs of a Writer’s Awakening, New Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-62097-240-3.
Daily Nation, Life Magazine, June 13, 2009: Questions on Ngugi’s appeal to save African languages and culture
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Is Ngugi wa thiong o a Nobel Prize winner?
Celebrated Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o has once again lost the Nobel Prize for Literature which went to little-known Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah.
What is Ngugi wa thiong o known for?
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, original name James Thiong’o Ngugi, (born January 5, 1938, Limuru, Kenya), Kenyan writer who was considered East Africa’s leading novelist. His popular Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first major novel in English by an East African.
Where is Ngugi wa Thiongo from?
How old is Ngugi wa thiong O?
Where is Ngugi wa thiong O now?
Decades ago, he was jailed in Kenya for writing a play in Gĩkũyũ, his mother tongue, rather than in English. Thiong’o was forced to spend much of his life in exile, and today, he teaches at the University of California, Irvine and is the founding director of their International Center for Writing and Translation.
When was Ngugi wa thiong o born?
Does Ngugi wa Thiongo have a PhD?
He is recipient of seven Honorary Doctorates viz D Litt (Albright); PhD (Roskilde); D Litt (Leeds); D Litt &Ph D (Walter Sisulu University); PhD (Carlstate); D Litt (Dillard) and D Litt (Auckland University).
Why did Ngugi change his name?
In 1977, he legally changed his name from James Ngugi to Ngugi wa Thiong’o after years of publicly renouncing English as the language of the oppressors in his nation and began writing all of his fiction in Gikuyu, the native language of his mother.
How many books has Ngugi wa thiong O?
How did Ngugi wa thiong grow up?
He was educated at Kamandura, Manguu and Kinyogori primary schools; Alliance High School, all in Kenya; Makerere University College (then a campus of London University), Kampala, Uganda; and the University of Leeds, Britain. The Kenya of his birth and youth was a British settler colony (1895-1963).
Was Ngugi’s mother tongue?
After 1981, he gave priority to writing in his mother tongue Kikuyu, an exceptional gesture in the domain of African literature.
What led to Ngugi’s release from the jail?
In addition to the diary, Ngugi also finished a novel while in prison. Using toilet paper and writing in Gikuyu he completed Devil On The Cross (Heinemann, 1982) a novel of corruption and the ruling elite. In December, 1978, after worldwide protests, Ngugi was freed.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (About the Writer)
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Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Kenyan writer
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Gikuyu pronunciation: [ᵑɡoɣe wá ðiɔŋɔ];[1] born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938)[2] is a Kenyan writer and academic, writing primarily in Gikuyu and formerly English . His work includes novels, plays, short stories and essays ranging from literary and social criticism to children’s literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu language magazine Mũtĩiri. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright has been translated into 100[3] languages from around the world.[4]
In 1977, Ngũgĩ began a novel form of theater in his native Kenya, which attempted to liberate the theater process from what he saw as “the general civic education system” by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances.[5] His project aimed to ‘demystify’ the theatrical process and avoid the ‘alienation process that produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers’ which, according to Ngũgĩ, fosters passivity in ‘common people’. [5] Although his seminal play Ngaahika Ndeenda, co-written with Ngugi wa Mirii, was a commercial success, it was shut down by the authoritarian Kenyan regime six weeks after its premiere.[5]
Ngũgĩ was then imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, the artist was released from prison and fled Kenya.[6] In the United States, he is currently Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine. He also previously taught at Northwestern University, Yale University and New York University. Ngũgĩ has often been considered a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[7][8][9] He won the International Nonino Prize in Italy in 2001 and the Park Kyong-ni Prize in 2016. Among his children are the authors Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ[10] and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.[11]
Biography[edit]
Early years and upbringing[edit]
Ngũgĩ was born in Kamiriithu, near Limuru[12] in Kiambu District, Kenya, of Kikuyu descent and was baptized James Ngugi. His family became involved in the Mau Mau Uprising; his half-brother Mwangi was actively involved in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, and his mother was tortured at the home guard post of Kamiriithu.[13]
He attended Alliance High School and then studied at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda. As a student he attended the African Writers Conference held in Makerere in June 1962 and his play The Black Hermit was premiered at the National Theater as part of the event ] At the conference Ngũgĩ asked Chinua Achebe to publish the manuscripts of his novels The River Between and Weep Not, Child, which would later be published in Heinemann’s African Writers Series, published in London that year with Achebe as first consulting editor.[20 ] Ngũgĩ received his B.A. in English from Makerere University College, Uganda, in 1963.
First publications and studies in England
His debut novel Weep Not, Child was published in May 1964, making it the first novel by an East African writer in English.[21][20]
Later that year, after receiving a scholarship to study for an MA at the University of Leeds, Ngũgĩ traveled to England, where he was when his second novel, The River Between, came out in 1965.[20] The river between, which has the Mau Mau uprising as its backdrop and described an unhappy romance between Christians and non-Christians, was previously on the curriculum of Kenya’s national secondary school.[22][23][24] He left Leeds without completing his dissertation on Caribbean literature,[25] for which his studies had focused on George Lamming, of whom Ngũgĩ said in his 1972 collection of essays Homecoming: “He evoked for me an unforgettable image of a peasant revolt in a white-dominated world. And suddenly I knew that a novel could be made to speak to me, could touch cords [sic] deep within me with an irresistible urgency. His world was not so alien to me as that of Fielding, Defoe, Smollett, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence.”[20]
Name change, ideology and doctrine[ edit ]
Ngũgĩ’s 1967 novel A Grain of Wheat marked his turn to Fanonist Marxism. He then renounced Christianity, wrote in English and used the name of James Ngugi as a colonialist; By 1970 he had changed his name to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o[26] and began writing in his native Gikuyu.[27] In 1967 Ngũgĩ also began teaching as a professor of English literature at the University of Nairobi. He continued to teach at the university for ten years while also being a Fellow in Creative Writing at Makerere. During this time he was also a visiting professor at Northwestern University in the Department of English and African Studies for a year.[19]
As a professor at the University of Nairobi, Ngũgĩ was the catalyst for the discussion about the abolition of the English faculty. He argued that after the end of colonialism it was imperative that a university in Africa teach African literature, including oral literature, and that it should do so with a recognition of the richness of African languages.[28]
detention [edit]
In 1976 he helped set up the Kamiriithu Community Educational and Cultural Center which, among other things, organized African theater in the region. The uncensored political message of his 1977 play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, provoked then Kenyan Vice President Daniel arap Moi to order his arrest. While incarcerated in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Ngũgĩ wrote the first modern novel in Gikuyu, Devil on the Cross (Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ), on toilet paper issued by the prison.
After his release in December 1978[19] he was not reinstated as a professor at Nairobi University and his family was harassed. Because of his publications about the injustices of the dictatorial government of the time, Ngugi and his family had to live in exile. Only when Arap Moi retired after serving his second and final term in 2002, 22 years later, was she safe to return.[29]
During his time in prison, Ngũgĩ made the decision to stop writing his plays and other works in English and began writing all of his creative works in his native language, Gikuyu.[19]
His time in prison also inspired the play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976). He wrote this in collaboration with Micere Githae Mugo.[30]
exile [edit]
In exile, Ngugi worked with the London-based Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya (1982–98).[19][6] Matigari ma Njiruungi (translated by Wangui wa Goro into English as Matigari) was published at that time. In 1984 he was a visiting professor at the University of Bayreuth and the following year writer-in-residence for the Borough of Islington in London.[19] He also studied film at the Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden (1986).[19]
His later works include Detained, his prison diary (1981), Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), an essay arguing that African writers express themselves in their mother tongues rather than in European languages, in order to abandoning lingering colonial ties and building authentic African literature, and Matigari (translated by Wangui wa Goro), (1987), one of his most famous works, a satire based on a Gikuyu folk tale.
Ngũgĩ was a visiting professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University between 1989 and 1992.[19] In 1992 he was a guest of the Congress of South African Writers and spent time with Mzi Mahola in Zwide Township, that year he became Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University, where he held the Erich Maria Remarque Chair. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature and was the first director of the International Center for Writing and Translation[31] at the University of California, Irvine.
2000s [edit]
On August 8, 2004, Ngũgĩ returned to Kenya as part of a month-long tour of East Africa. On August 11, robbers broke into his high-security apartment: they attacked Ngũgĩ, sexually assaulted his wife and stole various valuables.[32] When Ngũgĩ returned to America at the end of his month-long journey, five men were arrested on suspicion of the crime, including Ngũgĩ’s own nephew.[29] In the summer of 2006, American publisher Random House published its first new novel in almost two decades, Wizard of the Crow, translated into English by the author of Gikuyu.
On November 10, 2006, Ngũgĩ was harassed by an employee at the Hotel Vitale on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and ordered to leave the hotel. The event caused a public outcry and angered both African Americans and members of the African diaspora living in the Americas,[33][34] which prompted an apology from the hotel.[35]
His recent books include Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing (2012) and Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance, a collection of essays published in 2009 arguing for the crucial role of African languages in the “resurrection of the African memory” brings up,” about which Publishers Weekly said, “Ngugi’s language is fresh; the questions he raises are profound, the arguments he advances are clear: ‘To starve or kill a language is to starve and kill a people’s memory bank.’”[36] Two well-received autobiographical works followed Works: Dreams in a Time of War: a Childhood Memoir (2010)[37][38][39][40][41] and In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (2012), published by the Los Angeles Times [42] was described as “brilliant and essential” alongside other positive reviews.[43][44][45]
His book The Perfect Nine, originally written and published in Gikuyu as Kenda Muiyuru: Rugano Rwa Gikuyu na Mumbi (2019), translated into English by Ngũgĩ for its 2020 release, is a reinterpretation of the genesis of his people in epic poetry. 46] It was described by the Los Angeles Times as “a search novel in verse that explores folklore, myth and allegory through a decidedly feminist and pan-African lens.”[47] The review in World Literature Today states:
“Ngũgĩ creates a beautiful retelling of the Gĩkũyũ myth that emphasizes the noble pursuit of beauty, the need for personal courage, the importance of filial reverence, and the sense of the Supreme Giver—a being who represents divinity and unity across world religions All of these things fuse into dynamic verse to make The Perfect Nine a tale of wonder and endurance, a chronicle of modernity and myth, a meditation on beginnings and endings, and a palimpsest of ancient and contemporary memory, while Ngũgĩ the feminine of the Perfect Nine superimposes power on the origin myth of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya in a moving rendition of the epic form.”[48]
Fiona Sampson, writing in The Guardian, concluded that it is “a beautiful work of integration that not only refuses to distinguish between ‘high art’ and traditional storytelling, but provides that all-too-rare human necessity: the feeling that life has meaning.”[49]
In March 2021, The Perfect Nine became the first work in an indigenous African language to be longlisted for the International Booker Prize, with Ngũgĩ becoming the first nominee as both author and translator of the same book.[50][51]
family [edit]
Four of his children are also published authors: Tee Ngũgĩ, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, Nducu wa Ngũgĩ and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.[52][47]
Awards and honors[edit]
Honorary title[ edit ]
work [edit]
novels [edit]
Collections of short stories[ edit ]
A Meeting in the Dark (1974)
(1974) Secret Lives and Other Stories, (1976, 1992), ISBN 0-435-90975-4
, (1976, 1992), ISBN 0-435-90975-4 Minutes of Fame and Other Stories (2019)
plays[edit]
essays[edit]
Memories [ edit ]
Imprisoned: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1981)
(1981) Dreams in Wartime: Memories of Childhood (2010), ISBN 978-1-84655-377-6
(2010), ISBN 978-1-84655-377-6 In the Interpreter’s House: A Memoir (2012), ISBN 978-0-30790-769-1
(2012), ISBN 978-0-30790-769-1 Birth of a Dreamweaver: A Memoir of a Writer’s Awakening (2016), ISBN 978-1-62097-240-3
Other non-fiction[ edit ]
Children’s books[edit]
Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus (translated by Wangui wa Goro) (Njamba Nene na Mbaathi i Mathagu, 1986)
(translated by Wangui wa Goro) ( , 1986) Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief (translated by Wangui wa Goro) ( Njamba Nene na Chibu King’ang’i , 1988)
(translated by Wangui wa Goro) ( , 1988) Njamba Nene’s Pistol ( Bathitoora ya Njamba Nene , 1990), ISBN 0-86543-081-0
( , 1990), ISBN 0-86543-081-0 The Upright Revolution, or Why Humans Walk Upright, Seagull Press, 2019, ISBN 9780857426475
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Further Reading[edit]
Ngugi wa Thiong’o Biography, Books, & Facts
summary
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, original name James Thiong’o Ngugi, (born January 5, 1938 in Limuru, Kenya), Kenyan writer who was considered the leading novelist of East Africa. His popular Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first major novel by an East African in English. As he became more sensitive to the effects of colonialism in Africa, Ngugi adopted his traditional name and wrote in the Bantu language of Kenya’s Kikuyu people.
Ngugi received a bachelor’s degree from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in 1963 and Leeds University, Yorkshire, England, in 1964 Visiting Professor of English Studies at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. From 1972 to 1977 he was Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Faculty of Literature at the University of Nairobi.
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The award-winning Weep Not, Child is the story of a Kikuyu family drawn into the fight for Kenya’s independence during the state of emergency and the Mau Mau Rebellion. A Grain of Wheat (1967), generally considered more artistically mature, focuses on the many social, moral, and racial issues of the independence struggle and its aftermath. A third novel, actually written before the others, The River Between (1965) tells of lovers kept apart by the conflict between Christianity and traditional ways and beliefs, and suggests efforts to reunite a culturally divided community be undertaken through Western education Doomed to fail. Petals of Blood (1977) addresses social and economic problems in post-independence East Africa, particularly the continued exploitation of farmers and workers by foreign business interests and a greedy indigenous bourgeoisie.
In a novel written in Kikuyu and English versions, Caitaani Mutharaba-ini (1980; Devil on the Cross), Ngugi presented these ideas in an allegorical form. Written in a manner intended to evoke traditional ballad singers, the novel is a part realistic, part fantastical account of a meeting between the devil and various villains who prey on the poor. Mũrogi wa Kagogo (2004; Wizard of the Crow) brings the double lens of fantasy and satire to the legacy of colonialism, not only because it is perpetuated by an indigenous dictatorship, but also because it is rooted in a supposedly decolonized culture itself.
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The Black Hermit (1968; produced 1962) was the first of several plays of which The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976; produced 1974), co-written with Micere Githae Mugo, is considered by some critics to be his best. He co-wrote with Ngugi wa Mirii a play first written in Kikuyu, Ngaahika Ndeenda (1977; I Will Marry When I Want), the performance of which led to his year-long imprisonment without trial by the Kenyan government. (His book Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, published in 1981, details his ordeal.) The play attacks capitalism, religious hypocrisy and corruption among Kenya’s new business elite. Matigari ma Njiruungi (1986; Matigari) is a novel along the same lines.
Ngugi presented his ideas on literature, culture and politics in numerous essays and lectures collected in Homecoming (1972), Writers in Politics (1981), Barrel of a Pen (1983), Moving the Center (1993) and Penpoints, Gun Violence and Dreams (1998). In Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), Ngugi advocated for African-language literature as the only authentic voice for Africans, and stated his own intention to write only in Kikuyu or Kiswahili from that point forward. Such works earned him a reputation as one of Africa’s most articulate social critics.
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After a long exile from Kenya, Ngugi returned with his wife in 2004 to promote Mũrogi wa Kagogo. A few weeks later they were brutally attacked in their home; The attack was believed by some to be politically motivated. After her recovery, the couple continued to publish the book abroad. Ngugi later published the memoir Dreams in a Time of War (2010) about his childhood; In the House of the Interpreter (2012), largely set in the 1950s during the Mau Mau rebellion against British control in Kenya; and Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening (2016), chronicling his years at Makerere University.
Tanzanian Beats Ngugi wa Thiong’o to Win Nobel Prize
Acclaimed Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o has once again lost the Nobel Prize in Literature, which went to little-known Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah.
Gurnah was selected as the winner of the award by the Nobel Jury in a Swedish Academy ceremony held on Thursday 7 October
Recognized as Africa’s greatest author, Wa Thiong’o has been a close contender for nearly a decade – alongside other globally acclaimed writers including French writer Annie Ernaux, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Canadian Margaret Artwood and Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid.
In presenting the award to the 73-year-old Tanzanian, the Academy said it recognized him for his “uncompromising and compassionate exploration of the impact of colonialism and the plight of refugees across cultures and continents.”
Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah. Twitter
The award will be accompanied by a gold medal and participants will also win Ksh 114 million (US$1.14 million).
“Gurnah’s devotion to truth and dislike of simplification are remarkable. His novels shy away from stereotypical descriptions and open our eyes to a culturally diverse East Africa unknown to many in other parts of the world,” the Academy explained.
Gurnah is a Tanzanian writer from United Kingdom and writes his novels in English.
In 2020, the award was given to American poet Loise Glück, who described having a distinctive poetic voice that uses austere beauty to make individual existence universal.
When awarding the prize, the judges do not look at a specific book by the author, but at the impact of an author’s work over a specific period of time.
When he lost in 2020, wa Thiong’o downplayed his loss, noting that he didn’t write his novels with the aim of bagging the prize.
He further noted that instead he valued the “nobel of the heart.”
The Kenyan author previously lost the award to American singer, author and visual artist Bob Dylan (2016) and British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (2017).
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