Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Thiong'o in 2013
Born	James Githuka Ngugi (1938-01-05)5 January 1938 Kamiriithu, Kenya Colony
Occupation	Writer
Language	English, Swahili, Kikuyu
Education	Makerere University (BA) University of Leeds
Notable works	Weep Not, Child (1964); The River Between (1965); A Grain of Wheat (1967); Petals of Blood (1977); Matigari ma Njiruungi (1986); Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow, 2006)
Spouse	Njeeri
Children	Mũkoma, Wanjiku and others

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (born James Ngugi on January 5, 1938) is a famous Kenyan writer and professor. Many people call him "East Africa's top novelist."

He started writing in English. Later, he chose to write mostly in his native language, Gikuyu. His books include the well-known novel The River Between. He also wrote plays, short stories, and essays. These writings cover topics from books and society to stories for children.

Ngũgĩ started and edited Mũtĩiri, a journal in the Gikuyu language. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright has been translated into more than 100 languages.

In 1977, Ngũgĩ tried a new way of doing theatre in Kenya. He wanted to make plays more open and involve the audience. He believed this would help "ordinary people" feel more connected to the stories. His play Ngaahika Ndeenda, which he wrote with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, was very popular. However, the government in Kenya closed it down after only six weeks.

Ngũgĩ was then put in prison for over a year. Amnesty International, a group that helps people unfairly imprisoned, called him a "prisoner of conscience." After he was released, he left Kenya. He became a respected professor at the University of California, Irvine. He also taught at other universities like Northwestern University and Yale University. Many people think Ngũgĩ might win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has won other important awards, like the International Nonino Prize in Italy (2001) and the Park Kyong-ni Prize (2016). Two of his children, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ, are also writers.

About Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Early Life and School

Ngũgĩ was born in Kamiriithu, a place near Limuru in the Kiambu district of Kenya. He is from the Kikuyu group. His birth name was James Ngugi. His family was affected by the Mau Mau Uprising, a fight for freedom in Kenya.

He went to Alliance High School. Then, he studied at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda. In 1962, while he was a student, he went to a meeting for African writers. His play The Black Hermit was shown there. At this meeting, Ngũgĩ asked a famous writer, Chinua Achebe, to read his novels The River Between and Weep Not, Child. These books were later published. Ngũgĩ earned his degree in English from Makerere University College in 1963.

First Books and Studies in England

His first novel, Weep Not, Child, came out in May 1964. It was the first novel in English written by an East African author.

Later that year, Ngũgĩ won a scholarship to study at the University of Leeds in England. His second novel, The River Between, was published in 1965 while he was there. This book is about the Mau Mau Uprising and a sad love story between Christians and non-Christians. It used to be a required book in Kenyan high schools.

Ngũgĩ left Leeds without finishing his master's degree. He had been studying Caribbean writers. He felt that books by writers like George Lamming spoke to him more than older European authors.

Changing His Name and Ideas

Ngũgĩ's 1967 novel, A Grain of Wheat, showed his new ideas about Marxism, a way of thinking about society and power. After this, he decided to stop writing in English. He also changed his name from James Ngugi to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in 1970. He felt his English name was a reminder of colonialism, when European countries ruled Kenya. He began to write in his native Gikuyu language.

In 1967, Ngũgĩ also started teaching English literature at the University of Nairobi. He taught there for ten years. During this time, he also taught for a year at Northwestern University in the United States.

While at the University of Nairobi, Ngũgĩ pushed for big changes. He argued that African universities should teach African literature, including oral stories. He believed this should be done by focusing on the richness of African languages. Because of his efforts, the university changed its English Literature course. It was replaced with a course that put African literature at its center.

Time in Prison

In 1976, Ngũgĩ helped start the Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre. This center put on African plays. The next year, his novel Petals of Blood was published. This book, along with his play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), had strong political messages. Because of this, the Kenyan Vice-President, Daniel arap Moi, ordered his arrest. Along with copies of his play, books by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin were taken away.

Ngũgĩ was sent to Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. He was held there for almost a year without a trial. He was in a cell with other political prisoners. They were allowed only one hour of sunlight each day. Ngũgĩ wrote that the prison compound used to be for people with mental health issues. He found comfort in writing. He wrote the first modern novel in Gikuyu, Devil on the Cross (Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ), on prison toilet paper.

After he was released in December 1978, he did not get his job back at Nairobi University. His family was also bothered by the government. Because he wrote about the unfairness of the government, Ngũgĩ and his family had to live in exile, meaning they had to leave their home country. They could only return safely after Daniel arap Moi, who was Kenya's president for a long time, retired in 2002.

While in prison, Ngũgĩ decided to stop writing his creative works in English. He began writing all his plays and other books in his native Gikuyu language. His time in prison also inspired the play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976), which he wrote with Micere Githae Mugo.

Living in Exile

While living outside Kenya, Ngũgĩ worked with a group in London that helped political prisoners in Kenya. His book Matigari ma Njiruungi (later translated into English as Matigari) was published during this time. In 1984, he was a visiting professor in Germany. The next year, he was a writer-in-residence in London. He also studied film in Sweden in 1986.

Some of his later works include Detained, which is his prison diary (1981). He also wrote Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986). In this essay, he argued that African writers should write in their own languages. He believed this would help them break free from colonial influences and create true African literature. Matigari (1987) is another famous work, a funny story based on a Gikuyu folk tale.

Ngũgĩ was a visiting professor at Yale University from 1989 to 1992. In 1992, he became a professor at New York University. He is now a distinguished professor at the University of California, Irvine. He was also the first director of the International Center for Writing and Translation there.

21st Century Works

Ngũgĩ reading at the Library of Congress in 2019

In 2006, his first new novel in almost 20 years was published. It was called Wizard of the Crow. Ngũgĩ himself translated it into English from Gikuyu.

His later books include Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing (2012). He also wrote Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance (2009). This book of essays talks about how important African languages are for remembering African history. Publishers Weekly said about it: "Ngugi's language is fresh; the questions he raises are profound, the argument he makes is clear: 'To starve or kill a language is to starve and kill a people's memory bank.'"

He also wrote two autobiographies (books about his own life): Dreams in a Time of War: a Childhood Memoir (2010) and In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (2012). The Los Angeles Times called the second one "brilliant and essential."

His book The Perfect Nine (2020) was first written in Gikuyu. Ngũgĩ translated it into English. It is a long poem that tells the origin story of his people, the Gĩkũyũ. The Los Angeles Times described it as a "quest novel-in-verse that explores folklore, myth and allegory."

In March 2021, The Perfect Nine made history. It was the first book written in an African language to be considered for the International Booker Prize. Ngũgĩ was also the first person nominated as both the author and translator of the book.

In 2023, Ngũgĩ was asked if Kenyan English or Nigerian English were now local languages. He replied that English is not an African language. He said that colonized people trying to claim the colonizer's language shows how successful enslavement was.

Personal Life

Family

Four of Ngũgĩ's children are also authors. Their names are Tee Ngũgĩ, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, Nducu wa Ngũgĩ, and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.

Awards and Honours

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o has received many awards and honors throughout his life. Some of them include:

• 1964: Unesco First Prize for his first novel Weep Not Child.
• 1973: The Lotus Prize for Literature.
• 1992: The Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence.
• 2001: Nonino International Prize for Literature.
• 2002: His book Wizard of the Crow was named one of "The Best Twelve African Books of the Twentieth Century."
• 2003: Became an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
• 2006: Wizard of the Crow was listed as one of Time magazine's Top 10 Books of the Year.
• 2008: Received the Order of the Elder of Burning Spear, a Kenyan medal.
• 2009: Was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.
• 2016: Won the Park Kyong-ni Prize.
• 2019: Won the Premi Internacional de Catalunya Award for his brave work and support for African languages.
• 2021: Was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for The Perfect Nine.
• 2022: Won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

He has also received many honorary degrees from universities around the world. These include the University of Leeds, New York University, and Yale University.

Publications

Novels

• Weep Not, Child (1964)
• The River Between (1965)
• A Grain of Wheat (1967)
• Petals of Blood (1977)
• Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini (Devil on the Cross, 1980)
• Matigari ma Njiruungi (1986, translated as Matigari, 1989)
• Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow, 2006)
• The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi (2020)

Short Story Collections

• A Meeting in the Dark (1974)
• Secret Lives, and Other Stories (1976)
• Minutes of Glory and Other Stories (2019)

Plays

• The Black Hermit (1963)
• This Time Tomorrow (1970)
• The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976) (with Micere Githae Mugo)
• Ngaahika Ndeenda: Ithaako ria ngerekano (I Will Marry When I Want) (1977) (with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii)
• Mother, Sing For Me (1986)

Memoirs (Books About His Own Life)

• Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary (1981)
• Dreams in a Time of War: a Childhood Memoir (2010)
• In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (2012)
• Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Memoir of a Writer's Awakening (2016)
• Wrestling with the devil: A Prison Memoir (2018)

Other Non-Fiction Books

• Education for a National Culture (1981)
• Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya (1983)
• Writing against Neo-Colonialism (1986)
• Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986)
• Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms (1993)
• Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: The Performance of Literature and Power in Post-Colonial Africa (1998)
• Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance (2009)
• Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing (2012)
• Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe (2016)
• The Language of Languages (2023)

Children's Books

• Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus (1986)
• Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief (1988)
• Njamba Nene's Pistol (1990)
• The Upright Revolution, Or Why Humans Walk Upright (2019)

See also

In Spanish: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o para niños

• Kenyan literature
• World literature