18

Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in1938. Christened James Ngugi when he wasbaptised, he explained – in a 2004 interview –

how he came to reject that name: “If an African wasbaptized, as evidence of his new self or his newidentity, he was given an English name. Not just abiblical, but a biblical and English name. It was asymbolic replacing of one identity with another. WhenI realised that, I began to reject the name James andto reconnect myself to my African name whichwas given at birth, and that’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o,meaning Ngugi, son of Thiong.”

Ngugi studied English at MakerereUniversity in Uganda. While there he waseditor of Penpoint, one of the leadingliterary journals in East Africa at thattime.

Ngugi’s family were among thepeople who had been dispossessedwhen fertile land in central Kenyawas taken over for white settlement.Grievances over lost land contributed to theMau Mau nationalist revolt against the colonial powerand Ngugi’s first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964),portrays the Mau Mau conflict through the eyes of achild growing up with dreams for advancement only tobe caught up in a conflict between white settlers andMau Mau nationalists.

CCAASSTTIINNGG AA CCOOLLDD EEYYEEIn 1966 he published A Grain of Wheat, a novel set in1963 in a Kenyan village preparing for Independence.Through a series of flashbacks and the experiences ofvarious characters, Ngugi portrays Kenya’s struggle

(1952-1959) for Independence and the fears andexpectations when it was achieved.

John Thompson, a colonial official preparing to leaveKenya, recalls the heady days when – in 1952 –Princess Elizabeth visited Kenya and shook his handand “his heart-beat had quickened as if a covenanthad been made between him and her.” Now hewonders, “What the hell was it all about!”

Mugo, a hero of the villagers whomistakenly consider him a liberationveteran, is asked to make a speechhonouring the memory of a friend who

was hanged by the colonialadministrators. But Mugo’s life is ruled

by a dark secret. He is not the heropeople think he is.

Gikonyo was a member of the “party”,people who “met in huts in dark places late at

night, and whispered together, later breakinginto belligerent laughter and fighting

songs…The air was pregnant with expectation.One night it happened. Jomo Kenyatta and other

leaders of the land were rounded up; Governor Baringhad declared a state of emergency.” Gikonyo wasamong those rounded up “and taken to concentrationcamps – named detention centres for the worldoutside Kenya.”

After six years of incarceration, Gikonyo makes hisway back to his village. The thought of his wife Mumbiwaiting for him has sustained him through hissuffering. But his return home is not the joyfuloccasion he has anticipated. “She looked at him for asecond or two, gave an involuntary cry, almost

This Is MyCountry Helen Fallon

The Kenyan author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Africa Sept/October_LPPL 080806 14/8/06 12:08 pm Page 18

19

Helen Fallon is Deputy Librarian at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She has taught at theUniversity of Sierra Leone. A Grain of Wheat is published by Heinemann.

hoarse…Gikonyo saw a child securely strapped onher back. His raised arms remained frozen in the air.Then they slowly slumped back to his side. A lumpblocked his throat.”

The father of Mumbi’s child is Karanja, a childhoodfriend of Gikonyo. The next day, “Gikonyo suddenlyremembered that he was expected to report his arrivalin the village to the Chief…He stood at the door of theChief’s house and the ground below him began tomove. Gikonyo stared at the stern face of the Chief.Fate was mocking him. This could not be. ‘Come rightin,’ Karanja said.”

TTRROOUUBBLLEESSOOMMEE CCRRIITTIICCAfter Kenya gained independence in 1963, Ngugibelieved the new government was too eager toembrace the white settlers and to protect theireconomic interests at the expense of the poor peoplewho had opposed them. He quickly becamedisillusioned with President Jomo Kenyatta. In 1977he published Petals of Blood which portrayed post-colonial Kenya in a harsh light.

In the 1970s, all new plays had to be approved by thegovernment, and a licence was required for any publicperformance. In the town of Limuru, north of Nairobi,Ngugi founded a local theatre. His play, I Will MarryWhen I Want, dealt with the inequalities and injusticesof the time and was written in Gikuyu. Its performanceprompted the government to demolish the theatre andimprison Ngugi, without trial, in 1978.

While in prison he wrote Devil on the Cross, his firstnovel in Gikuyu. The decision to stop writing fiction inEnglish and to use his native language, Gikuyu,stemmed from his belief that culture and language areinseparable. “Language is a means of communicationand a carrier of culture…and culture carries the entirebody of values by which we perceive ourselves andour place in the world.”

Ngugi’s decision was also influenced by hisknowledge that his novels, written in the Englishlanguage, were not accessible to the workers andpeasants whom he saw to be the agents of change ina postcolonial society.

Released from prison in 1979, the year Daniel ArapMoi became President, Ngugi was barred from

returning to his teaching job in the literaturedepartment of the University of Nairobi and fromteaching at other educational institutions. Hecontinued to write.

EEXXIILLEE AANNDD HHOOMMEECCOOMMIINNGGIn 1982, while promoting Devil on the Cross inLondon, Ngugi learned of plans by President Moi toarrest him. He decided not to return to Kenya. Twentytwo years of exile in Europe and America followed. Hecontinued to write fiction in Gikuyu and essays andliterary criticism in English while holdingprofessorships at Yale and at New York University. Heis currently professor of English and ComparativeLiterature at the University of California, Irvine.

Ngugi visited Kenya in August 2004; Arap Moi was nolonger President. At a press conference he said, “Thisis my country, for better or worse, and it’s for me andeverybody else to make it the Kenya that it can be.” ■

Kenyan teacher, novelist, essayist, and playwright,Ngugi wa Thiong’o is an important link between thepioneers of African writing and the youngergeneration of postcolonial writers. Afterimprisonment in 1978, Ngugi abandoned usingEnglish as the primary language of his work in favourof Gikuyu, his native tongue.

(Photo: www.weberberg.de/skool)

Africa Sept/October_LPPL 080806 14/8/06 12:08 pm Page 19