Tag Archives: Ngugi wa Thiong’o

A look at the novels, essays, and poems that made the late Kenyan writer one of the most influential literary and political voices of the 20th and 21st centuries ANALYSIS | LIHLE Z. MTSHALI | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wasn’t just a writer — he was a liberator of language, memory, and …

Ngugi composed the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language on prison toilet paper while being held by Kenyan authorities. He spent many prolific years in exile OBITUARY | ALAN COWELL | Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a groundbreaking novelist, playwright and memoirist whose writings explored the iniquities and ambiguities of colonialism in …

INDEPENDENCE SPECIAL: By Ngugi wa Thiong’o In 1969 Gacamba, a bicycle repairer in Nyeri, a town about a hundred miles from Nairobi, discovered some kind of engine, a scooter engine, and, using the scrap metal he could find in his backyard, made an aeroplane that he called Kenya One. The plane …