Acclaimed Kenyan author and dissident, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, dies at 87

Ngugi’s work critiqued each British colonialism in Kenya and postcolonial Kenyan society.

Famend Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o has died at age 87, his relations have introduced.

“It’s with a heavy coronary heart that we announce the passing of our dad, Ngugi wa Thiong’o,” his daughter Wanjiku Wa Ngugi wrote on Fb on Wednesday.

“He lived a full life, fought battle,” she mentioned.

On the time of his demise, Ngugi was reportedly receiving kidney dialysis remedies, however his fast explanation for demise remains to be unknown.

Born in Kenya in 1938, Ngugi will likely be remembered as one in every of Africa’s most necessary postcolonial writers. Formative occasions in Ngugi’s youth included the brutal Mau Mau struggle that swept British-ruled Kenya within the Nineteen Fifties.

Ngugi’s work was equally important of the British colonial period and the postcolonial society that adopted Kenya’s independence in 1963. Different subjects in his work lined the intersection between language, tradition, historical past, and id.

Ngugi made a mark for himself within the Nineteen Seventies when he determined to change from writing in English to the Kikuyu and Swahili languages – a controversial determination on the time.

“All of us thought he was mad… and courageous on the similar time,” Kenyan author David Maillu advised the AFP information company.

“We requested ourselves who would purchase the books.”

One in every of his most well-known works, “Decolonising the Thoughts”, was printed in 1986 whereas dwelling overseas. The guide argues that it’s “unimaginable to liberate oneself whereas utilizing the language of oppressors”, AFP reviews.

Apart from holding the place of acclaimed author, Ngugi was a prisoner of conscience. In 1977, he was jailed in Kenya for staging a play deemed important of latest society.

He as soon as described the nation’s new elite class as “the demise of hopes, the demise of goals and the demise of magnificence”.

In 1982, Ngugi went into self-imposed exile within the UK following a ban on theatre teams and performances in his dwelling nation. He later moved to the US, the place he labored as a professor of comparative literature on the College of California, Irvine. He additionally continued writing a variety of works, together with essays, memoirs and novels about Kenya.

Following information of Ngugi’s demise, reward for his life and work rapidly appeared on-line.

“My condolences to the household and pals of Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a famend literary big and scholar, a son of the soil and nice patriot whose footprints are indelible,” Kenya’s opposition chief Martha Karua wrote on X.

“Thanks Mwalimu [teacher] on your freedom writing,” wrote Amnesty Worldwide’s Kenya department on X. “Having already earned his place in Kenyan historical past, he transitions from mortality to immortality.”

Margaretta wa Gacheru, a sociologist and former scholar of Ngugi, mentioned the writer was a nationwide icon.

“To me, he’s like a Kenyan Tolstoy, within the sense of being a storyteller, within the sense of his love of the language and panoramic view of society, his description of the panorama of social relations, of sophistication and sophistication struggles,” she mentioned.