Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o made the defiant decision while incarcerated, helping to establish literature in African languages.
His daughter announced on Facebook that Ngugi passed away at the age of 87 on Wednesday.
Wanjiku Wa Ngugi wrote, “We are sad to announce the passing of our father, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, this morning. He “fought a good fight and lived a full life.”
Ngugi, who is regarded as the most influential writer in East Africa, sought to forge a work of literature that reflected the people and places he had come from and didn’t deviate from Western tradition.
“I firmly believe in the equality of languages. He spoke to AFP in a 2022 interview from California, where he had lived under self-imposed exile, and said: “I am completely horrified by the hierarchy of languages.
At first, his decision to switch to his native language, Kikuyu, and Kenya’s national language Swahili, was met with a lot of confusion.
We all believed that he was both brave and mad, according to Kenyan author David Maillu. We “asked ourselves to decide who would purchase the books.”
However, the bold decision made a reputation for him and made him a famous author in Africa.
The soft-spoken author also lived a dramatic life similar to that of his books.
His frequent clashes with the authorities resulted from his criticism of post-colonial Kenya, which described the violence of the political class and the newly wealthy as “the death of hopes, dreams, and the death of beauty.”
Decolonizing the mind: a case study
On January 5, 1938, James Ngugi, a large peasant family, spent his first 25 years of life in a colony that was then a British colony.
His country’s struggle against colonial rule and the brutal Mau Mau Mau war of 1952-1960 heavily influenced his early writings.
He described himself as a “stranger in his home country” in his first collection of essays, “Homecoming.”
However, his anger would eventually spread to post-colonial Kenyan society’s inequality, wreaking havoc on the government.
Following the staging of their play “Ngaahika Ndeenda,” “I Will Marry When I Want,” in 1977, Ngugi and another writer, Ngugi wa Mirii, were imprisoned without charge.
He made the decision to write his first novel in Kikuyu, “Devil on the Cross,” which was released in 1980.
He had already chosen to call himself Ngugi wa Thiong’o in response to his “English” surname.
He told US radio station NPR, “I wrote it on toilet paper, the only paper I have.”
Prior to a global campaign that led to his release from Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in December 1978, Amnesty International designated him as a prisoner of conscience.
In the book “The River Between,” Ngugi began a critical analysis of the significance of Christianity in an African setting as early as 1965.
He wrote, “You became lost if the white man’s religion forced you to abandon a custom and then did not give you something else of equal value.”
After being prohibited from performing in theaters in Kenya, he fled to the United States and then initially to Britain.
He wrote a collection of essays about the influence of language on shaping national identity, culture, and history in 1986, which is one of his most well-known works.
A Kenyan Tolstoy, perhaps?
Ngugi was mobbed by supporters at Nairobi’s airport when he returned home in 2004 for a visit.
He declared, “I have returned with an open mind, an open heart, and an open arms.”
He and his wife were attacked by armed men days later, with both of them being beaten and raped. Robbery or the assault’s political motivations were not immediately known.
He was referred to as a national icon by former Ngugi student Margaretta wa Gacheru.
He “resembles a Kenyan Tolstoy” in that he is a storyteller, as evidenced by his appreciation for the language, a panoramic view of society, and his description of the social relations and class struggles landscape,” she said.
The father-of-three, who later became a professor of comparative literature at the University of California Irvine, also published essays and three memoirs.
His most recent book, “The Perfect Nine,” a genre-defying novel-in-verse, was the one he translated into English in 2020.
Folklore and allegory were woven into the narrative of the Kikuyu people’s founding.
The issues raised in the play persist in Kenya and beyond despite expanding economic inequality and the play’s creator’s ignorance of the situation.
Ngugi told AFP, “I want to see change because I am an activist.”
