A life of courage and conviction

Sarala Krishnamurthy pays tribute to Ngugi wa Thiong'o, whose works bristled with his political opinions while remaining deeply personal and emotive

The intellectual giant of African literature, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, died at the age of 87 in May. Born in Kamirithu, Kenya, to humble parentage, James Ngugi joined Alliance High School, the only British-run school in the region. He then proceeded to join the prestigious Makerere University in Uganda before embarking on his journey to the University of Leeds in the UK, where, under the tutelage of stalwarts like professors Arthur Ravenscraft and Alistair Niven, he honed his literary skills.

Subsequently, he returned to Kenya to join the Department of English at the University of Kenya in Nairobi. His very first act was to toss out the age-old English literature curriculum designed by the British and replace it with a new one focusing on African literature and indigenous languages. It was during this period that he met Chinua Achebe, the famous Nigerian novelist to whom he submitted the manuscript of his first novel, The River Between, which was published soon after on Achebe’s recommendation and, thus encouraged, Ngugi published two more novels, Weep Not Child and A Grain of Wheat, becoming the first East African writer writing in English.

In 1977, as a first step towards reclaiming his African identity, he dropped his Christian name “James” and adopted Ngugi wa Thiong’o. His vociferous condemnation of the government and ideologically driven politics got him into trouble frequently, causing him to be imprisoned several times. Nevertheless, it was a productive time for him,  since he wrote his novel in prison, it is said, on toilet paper because the prison authorities refused to give him paper. He stopped writing in English and committed himself to writing in Gikuyu entirely, arguing that if we use the coloniser’s language, we are entrapped by its articulations, which limit our creative expression.

Thus, the only way to escape this burden is to write in our mother tongue, he felt. He believed it was his responsibility to communicate with his people before chasing international recognition. Therefore, he wrote his first novel in Gikuyu, Petals of Blood, attacking the ruling class, the neo-colonialists who had taken over from the British. He felt betrayed by the politicians of the day. Unable to live under a corrupt and authoritarian government, he moved to the US eventually, where he served as distinguished professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine.

Ngugi developed a radical approach in his writings, influenced by Marxist thinkers like Frantz Fanon and others. In Petals of Blood, for instance, he explicitly describes the overthrow of neocolonial forces by marginalised groups consisting of peasants, beggars and sex workers. In Matigaari, the protagonist asks uncomfortable questions, challenging those in power. His novel was so convincing that the police came looking for Matigaari because they believed him to be a real person. His searing prose in Wizard of Crow marked his entry into a new territory of writing using postmodern elements. But subsequently, his novels evolved into scathing attacks on the ruling class. His imprisonment brought about a change in his thinking, with the consequence that he took a diametrically opposing stand to Chinua Achebe. While Achebe insisted that English could be twisted and bent to capture the African rhythm and ethos, Ngugi firmly believed that the coloniser’s language imposes Western patterns on our consciousness: To break away from this imposition, it is imperative to stop using English altogether, thus leading to the decolonisation of the mind.

The writer is a Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the Namibia University of Science and Technology.