Literature & Ideas
Landmark
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
born 1938
East Africa's leading novelist, who gave up English for Gikuyu
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Kenya Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He wrote the first major English-language novel by an East African, then renounced English for his own language — an argument about whose mind literature belongs to that reshaped African writing.
Born James wa Thiong'o Ngugi at Limuru in January 1938, he published Weep Not, Child in 1964: his first major novel in English and the first by an East African.
He later rejected English as a literary language and wrote in Gikuyu instead, setting out the reasoning in Decolonising the Mind. Detained without trial in Kenya in the late 1970s, he spent many years in exile.
He later rejected English as a literary language and wrote in Gikuyu instead, setting out the reasoning in Decolonising the Mind. Detained without trial in Kenya in the late 1970s, he spent many years in exile.
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