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 struggle,” she stated.
On the time of his loss of life, Ngugi was reportedly receiving kidney dialysis remedies, however his speedy explanation for loss of life remains to be unknown.
Born in Kenya in 1938, Ngugi will likely be remembered as considered one of Africa’s most essential postcolonial writers. Formative occasions in Ngugi’s youth included the brutal Mau Mau conflict that swept British-ruled Kenya within the Fifties.
Ngugi’s work was equally important of the British colonial period and the postcolonial society that adopted Kenya’s independence in 1963. Different matters in his work coated the intersection between language, tradition, historical past, and identification.
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 resolution on the time.
“All of us thought he was mad… and courageous on the identical 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 revealed in 1986 whereas residing overseas. The e-book argues that it’s “unimaginable to liberate oneself whereas utilizing the language of oppressors”, AFP stories.
In addition to 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 loss of life of hopes, the loss of life of goals and the loss of life of magnificence”.
In 1982, Ngugi went into self-imposed exile within the UK following a ban on theatre teams and performances in his house 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 loss of life, reward for his life and work rapidly appeared on-line.
“My condolences to the household and buddies 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] in 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 pupil of Ngugi, stated 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 stated.