Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is currently
Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University
of California, Irvine. He is a recipient of ten Honorary Doctorates, is a
Fellow of the MLA, an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and a 2014 fellow of the American Academy
of Arts & Sciences. Ngũgĩ, formerly Erich Maria Remarque Professor
of Languages and Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies,
New York University, is a novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist, editor,
academic and social activist from Kenya.
The Kenya of his birth and youth was a
British settler colony (1895-1963). As an adolescent, he lived through the Mau
Mau War of Independence (1952-1962), the central historical episode in the
making of modern Kenya and a major theme in his early works.
His works include:
Weep not Child (London, 1964)
The River Between
(London, 1965)
A Grain of Wheat (London, 1967)
Secret Lives (London, 1969)
Petals of Blood, (London, 1977)
The
year 1977 forced dramatic turns in Ngugi¡¯s life and career. Petals of Blood
painted a harsh and unsparing picture of life in
neo-colonial Kenya. That same year Ngugi¡¯s controversial play, Ngaahika Ndeenda
(I Will Marry When I Want), written with Ngugi wa Mirii, was performed at
Kamirithu Educational and Cultural Center, Limuru, in an open air theatre. Sharply
critical of the inequalities and injustices of Kenyan society, Ngugi was
arrested and imprisoned without charge at Kamiti Maxium Security Prison. An
account of those experiences can be found in his memoir, Detained: A Writer¡¯s Prison Diary. After Amnesty International
named him a Prisoner of Conscience, an international campaign secured his
release a year later, December 1978. He resumed his writings and his activities
in the theater and in so doing, continued to be an uncomfortable voice for the
Moi dictatorship. While in Britain for the launch and promotion of Devil on the Cross, he learned about the
Moi regime¡¯s plot to eliminate him on his return. This forced him into exile,
first in Britain (1982 – 1989) and then the U. S. (1989 – 2002). He remained in
exile for the duration of the Moi dictatorship. When he and his wife, Njeeri
returned to Kenya in 2004 after twenty-two years in exile, they were attacked by
four hired gunmen and narrowly escaped with their lives.
Caitaani Mũtharabainĩ (Nairobi, 1980)
(English trans: Devil on the Cross (London), 1982)
Detained: A Writers Prison
Diary, (London, 1982)
Matigari Ma Njirũũngi (Nairobi, 1986)
English trans: Matigari, (London, 1989);
Homecoming (London, 1969);
Decolonising the Mind (London, 1986)
Moving the Centre (London, 1993)
Writers in Politics (London, 1997)
Penpoints, Gunpoints and
Dreams, (Oxford, 1998)
The Black Hermit (London, 1969)
This Time Tomorrow (Nairobi, 1972)
The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, (with Micere Mugo) (London, 1976)
Ngaahika Ndeenda, (with Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ) (Nairobi, 1980)
(English trans: I Will Marry
When I Want, (London, 1982)
Murogi wa Kagogo (Nairobi, 2004)
English trans: Wizard of the
Crow (New York, 2006)
Something Torn and New: An
African Renaissance (New York, 2009)
Dreams in a Time of War: A
Childhood Memoir (New York, 2010)
Globalectics: Theory and
the Politics of Knowing, (NY: Columbia U. Press,
2012)
In the House of the
Interpreter (New York, 2012)
Ngugi¡¯s
3rd memoir: Birth of a Dreamweaver: A Writer¡¯s Awakening will be published
in October by The New Press.
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