Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o signs copies of his book Wizard of the Crow, at the Congress Centre in central London. Wizard was his first book in 20 years, following 22 years of exile due to his highly political work.
Born January 5, 1938 (1938-01-05) (age 74)
Kamiriithu, Kenya
Occupation Writer
Language English, Gĩkũyũ

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (pronounced [ŋɡoɣe wa ðiɔŋɔ]; born January 5, 1938[1]) is a Kenyan author, formerly working in English and now working in Gĩkũyũ. 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 journal, Mũtĩiri.

In 1977, Ngugi embarked upon a novel form of theater in his native Kenya which sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances.[2] Ngugi's project sought to "demystify" the theatrical process, and to avoid the "process of alienation [which] produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers" which, according to Ngugi, encourages passivity in "ordinary people".[2] Although Ngaahika Ndeenda was a commercial success, it was shut down by the authoritarian Kenyan regime six weeks after its opening.[2] Ngugi was subsequently imprisoned for over a year.

Adopted as an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience, the artist was released from prison, and fled Kenya. In the United States, he taught at Yale University for some years, and has since also taught at New York University, with a dual professorship in Comparative Literature and Performance Studies, and the University of California, Irvine. Ngũgĩ has frequently been regarded as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[3][4][5] His son is the author Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ.[6]

Contents

Biography

Ngũgĩ was born in Kamiriithu, near Limuru in Kiambu district, Kenya, of Kĩkũyũ descent, and baptised James Ngugi. His family was caught up in the Mau Mau War; his half brother Mwangi was actively involved in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, and his mother was tortured at Kamriithu homeguard post.[7] He received a B.A. in English from Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda, in 1963; during his education, a play of his, The Black Hermit, was produced in Kampala in 1962.

He published his first novel, Weep Not, Child, in 1964, which he wrote while attending the University of Leeds in England. It was the first novel in English to be published by an East African. His second novel, The River Between (1965), has as its background the Mau Mau rebellion, and described an unhappy romance between Christians and non-Christians. The River Between is currently on Kenya's national secondary school syllabus.[8][9]

His novel A Grain of Wheat (1967) marked his embrace of Fanonist Marxism. He subsequently renounced English, Christianity, and the name James Ngugi as colonialist; he changed his name back to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and began to write in his native Gĩkũyũ and Swahili. The uncensored political message of his 1977 play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) provoked then Vice President Daniel arap Moi to order his arrest. While detained in the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, he wrote the first modern novel in Gĩkũyũ, Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ (Devil on the Cross), on prison-issued toilet paper.

After his release, he was not reinstated to his job as professor at Nairobi University, and his family was harassed. Due to his writing about the injustices of the dictatorial government at the time, Ngugi and his family were forced to live in exile. Only after Arap Moi was voted out of office, 22 years later, was it safe for them 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 for African writers' expression in their native languages, rather than European languages, in order to renounce lingering colonial ties and to build an authentic African literature, and Matigari (1987), one of his most famous works, a satire based on a Gĩkũyũ folktale.

In 1992 he became a professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University, where he held the Erich Maria Remarque Chair. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature as well as the 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 apartment: they assaulted both the Professor and his wife, and stole money and a computer.[10] Since then, Ngũgĩ has returned to America, and in the summer 2006 the American publishing firm Random House published his first new novel in nearly two decades, Wizard of the Crow, translated to English from Gĩkũyũ by the author.

On November 10, 2006, while in San Francisco at Hotel Vitale at the Embarcadero, Ngũgĩ was harassed and ordered to leave the hotel by an employee. The event led to a public outcry and angered the Kenyan community in the San Francisco Bay area and abroad,[11] prompting an apology by the hotel.[12]

Awards and honors

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ "Ngugi Wa Thiong’o: A Profile of a Literary and Social Activist". ngugiwathiongo.com. http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/bio/bio-home.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-20. 
  2. ^ a b c Ngugi wa Thiongo. Decolonising the mind: the politics of language in African literature. 1994, page 57-9
  3. ^ Despite the Criticism, Ngugi is 'Still Best Writer'. 8 November 2010.
  4. ^ Kenyan author sweeps in as late favourite in Nobel prize for literature. The Guardian. 5 October 2010.
  5. ^ Ngugi wa Thiong'o: a major storyteller with a resonant development message. The Guardian. 6 October 2010.
  6. ^ Mukomawangugi.com
  7. ^ Nicholls, Brendon. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, gender, and the ethics of postcolonial reading. 2010, page 89
  8. ^ Muchemi Wachira (2 April 2008). "Kenya: Publishers Losing Millions to Pirates". The Daily Nation. http://allafrica.com/stories/200804011177.html. Retrieved 5 December 2009. 
  9. ^ Joseph Ngunjiri (25 November 2007). "Kenya: Ngugi Book Causes Rift Between Publishers". The Daily Nation. http://allafrica.com/stories/200711260298.html. Retrieved 14 January 2010. 
  10. ^ Jaggi, Maya (2006-01-26). "The Outsider: an interview with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o". London: The Guardian. http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1696522,00.html. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
  11. ^ "The Incident at Hotel Vitale, San Francisco, California, Friday, November 10, 2006". Africa Resource. 2006-11-10. http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=180. 
  12. ^ "The Hotel Responds to the Racist Treatment of Professor Ngugi Wa Thiong'o". Africa Resource. 2006-11-10. http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:the-hotel-responds-to-the-racist-treatment-of-professor-ngugi-wa-thiongo&catid=136:race&Itemid=351. 
  13. ^ Rollyson, Carl Edmund; Magill, Frank Northen (June 2003). Critical Survey of Drama: Jane Martin - Lennox Robinson. Salem Press. p. 2466. ISBN 978-1-58765-107-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=9ZIYAAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 25 November 2011. 
  14. ^ Daily Nation, Lifestyle Magazine, June 13, 2009: Queries over Ngugi’s appeal to save African languages, culture

External links

Works by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Novels
Children's books
  • Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus (1986)
  • Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief (1988)
  • Njamba Nene's Pistol (1990)
Plays
Short Stories
  • Secret Lives, and Other Stories (1976)
Essays
  • Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture, and Politics (1972)
  • Writers in Politics: Essays (1981)
  • Education for a National Culture (1981)
  • Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya (1983)
  • Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986)
  • Writing against Neo-Colonialism (1986)
  • Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedom (1993)
  • Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: The Performance of Literature and Power in Post-Colonial Africa (1996)