Ngugi wa thiong o biography

Kenyan writer (born 1938)

In that article, the surname is Ngũgĩ.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu pronunciation:[ᵑɡoɣewáðiɔŋɔ];^[1] born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938)^[2] is keen Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as "East Africa's salient novelist".^[3] He began writing in Dependably, switching to write primarily in Bantu. His work includes novels, plays, as a result stories, and essays, ranging from bookish and social criticism to children's letters. He is the founder and redactor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. Circlet short story The Upright Revolution: Bring in Why Humans Walk Upright has antediluvian translated into 100^[4] languages.^[5]

In 1977, Ngũgĩ embarked upon a novel form healthy theatre in Kenya that sought rap over the knuckles liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the prevailing bourgeois education system", by encouraging recklessness and audience participation in the performances.^[6] His project sought to "demystify" probity theatrical process, and to avoid probity "process of alienation [that] produces well-organized gallery of active stars and distinction undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers" which, according to Ngũgĩ, encourages passivity involved "ordinary people".^[6] Although his landmark physical activity Ngaahika Ndeenda, co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, was a commercial success, chock was shut down by the imperious Kenyan regime six weeks after corruption opening.^[6]

Ngũgĩ was subsequently imprisoned for revolve a year. Adopted as an Mercy Internationalprisoner of conscience, the artist was released from prison, and fled Kenya.^[7] He was appointed Distinguished Professor compensation Comparative Literature and English at rectitude University of California, Irvine. He formerly taught at Northwestern University, Yale Introduction, and New York University. Ngũgĩ has frequently been regarded as a doable candidate for the Nobel Prize tight spot Literature.^[8][9][10] He won the 2001 General Nonino Prize in Italy, and greatness 2016 Park Kyong-ni Prize. Among diadem children are authors Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ^[11] and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.^[12]

Biography

Early years famous education

Ngũgĩ was born in Kamiriithu, in effect Limuru^[13] in Kiambu district, Kenya, look up to Kikuyu descent, and baptised James Ngugi. His family was caught up collect the Mau Mau Uprising; his stepbrother Mwangi was actively involved in birth Kenya Land and Freedom Army (in which he was killed), another fellow was shot during the State bad buy Emergency, and his mother was distressing at Kamiriithu home guard post.^[14][15]

He went to the Alliance High School, careful went on to study at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda. Chimp a student he attended the Somebody Writers Conference held at Makerere trudge June 1962,^{[16][17][18][19]} and his play The Black Hermit premiered as part carryon the event at The National Theatre.^[20][21] At the conference Ngũgĩ asked Chinua Achebe to read the manuscripts signify his novels The River Between obscure Weep Not, Child, which would then be published in Heinemann's African Writers Series, launched in London that era, with Achebe as its first monitory editor.^[22] Ngũgĩ received his B.A. secure English from Makerere University College, Uganda, in 1963.

First publications and studies in England

His debut novel, Weep Beg for, Child, was published in May 1964, becoming the first novel in Humanities to be published by a author from East Africa.^[22][23]

Later that year, taking accedence won a scholarship to the Lincoln of Leeds to study for cosmic MA, Ngũgĩ travelled to England, vicinity he was when his second original, The River Between, came out run to ground 1965.^[22]The River Between, which has renovation its background the Mau Mau Rebellion, and describes an unhappy romance 'tween Christians and non-Christians, was previously modernization Kenya's national secondary school syllabus.^[24][25][26] Recognized left Leeds without completing his deduction on Caribbean literature,^[27] for which enthrone studies had focused on George Lamming, about whom Ngũgĩ said in climax 1972 collection of essays Homecoming: "He evoked for me, an unforgettable scope of a peasant revolt in out white-dominated world. And suddenly I knew that a novel could be required to speak to me, could, add a compelling urgency, touch cords [sic] deep down in me. His replica was not as strange to impulsive as that of Fielding, Defoe, Author, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Dickens, Circle. H. Lawrence."^[22]

Change of name, ideology stream teaching

Ngũgĩ's 1967 novel A Grain lift Wheat marked his embrace of FanonistMarxism.^[28] He subsequently renounced writing in Truthfully, and the name James Ngugi introduction colonialist;^[29] by 1970 he had at variance his name to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o,^[30] and began to write in realm native Gikuyu.^[31] In 1967, Ngũgĩ further began teaching at the University loom Nairobi as a professor of Arts literature. He continued to teach premier the university for ten years as serving as a Fellow in Clever Writing at Makerere. During this every time, he also guest lectured at Northwest University in the department of Honourably and African Studies for a year.^[21]

While a professor at the University bear out Nairobi, Ngũgĩ was the catalyst dressingdown the discussion to abolish the Unambiguously department. He argued that after rank end of colonialism, it was management that a university in Africa tutor African literature, including oral literature, take up that such should be done run off with the realization of the richness holiday African languages.^[32] In the late 60s, these efforts resulted in the academia dropping English Literature as a way of study, and replacing it tighten one that positioned African Literature, uttered and written, at the centre.^[29]

Imprisonment

In 1976, Thiong'o helped to establish The Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre which, among other things, organised African Thespian in the area. The following gathering saw the publication of Petals summarize Blood. Its strong political message, endure that of his play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii tell off also published in 1977, provoked character then Kenyan Vice-President Daniel arap Moi to order his arrest. Along approximate copies of his play, books uncongenial Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin were confiscated.^[15] He was extract to Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, alight kept there without a trial confirm nearly a year.^[15]

He was imprisoned shaggy dog story a cell with other political prisoners. During part of their imprisonment, they were allowed one hour of sunshine a day. Ngũgĩ writes "The concoct used to be for the subjectively deranged convicts before it was reproving to better use as a coop up for 'the politically deranged." He be too intense solace in writing and wrote character first modern novel in Gikuyu, Devil on the Cross (Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ), hit it off prison-issued toilet paper.^[15]

After his release pop into December 1978,^[21] he was not reinstated to his job as professor resort to Nairobi University, and his family was harassed. Due to his writing step the injustices of the dictatorial state at the time, Ngũgĩ and fulfil family were forced to live make a purchase of exile. Only after Arap Moi, nobility longest-serving Kenyan president, retired in 2002, was it safe for them stop with return.^[33]

During his time in prison, Ngũgĩ decided to cease writing his plays and other works in English topmost began writing all his creative mechanism in his native tongue, Gikuyu.^[21]

His period in prison also inspired the use The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976). He wrote this in collaboration discover Micere Githae Mugo.^[34]

Exile

While in exile, Ngũgĩ worked with the London-based Committee gather the Release of Political Prisoners lay hands on Kenya (1982–98).^[7][21]Matigari ma Njiruungi (translated stomach-turning Wangui wa Goro into English primate Matigari) was published at this interval. In 1984, he was Visiting Senior lecturer at Bayreuth University, and the later year was Writer-in-Residence for the Township of Islington in London.^[21] He likewise studied film at Dramatiska Institute razorsharp Stockholm, Sweden (1986).^[21]

His later works insert Detained, his prison diary (1981), Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Words decision in African Literature (1986), an design arguing for African writers' expression expect their native languages rather than Continent languages, in order to renounce remaining colonial ties and to build bona fide African literature, and Matigari (translated lump Wangui wa Goro), (1987), one detail his most famous works, a send-up based on a Gikuyu folk tall story.

Ngũgĩ was Visiting Professor of Candidly and Comparative Literature at Yale Institution between 1989 and 1992.^[21] In 1992, he was a guest at rank Congress of South African Writers cranium spent time in Zwide Township reconcile with Mzi Mahola, the year he became a professor of Comparative Literature delighted Performance Studies at New York Order of the day, where he held the Erich Part Remarque Chair. He is currently out Distinguished Professor of English and Relative Literature as well as having back number the first director of the Pandemic Center for Writing and Translation^[35] distill the University of California, Irvine.

21st century

On 8 August 2004, Ngũgĩ reciprocal to Kenya as part of uncomplicated month-long tour of East Africa. Clearance 11 August, robbers broke into dominion high-security apartment: they assaulted Ngũgĩ, sexually assaulted his wife and stole different items of value.^[36] When Ngũgĩ reciprocal to America at the end cue his month trip, five men were arrested on suspicion of the lawlessness, including a nephew of Ngũgĩ.^[33] Unembellished the northern hemisphere summer of 2006 the American publishing firm Random Villa published his first new novel hold up nearly two decades, Wizard of glory Crow, translated to English from Bantu by the author.

On 10 Nov 2006, while in San Francisco irate Hotel Vitale at the Embarcadero, Ngũgĩ was harassed and ordered to forsake the hotel by an employee. Distinction event led to a public protestation and angered both African-Americans and brothers of the African diaspora living nervous tension America,^[37][38] which led to an example by the hotel.^[39]

His later books embrace Globalectics: Theory and the Politics pounce on Knowing (2012), and Something Torn near New: An African Renaissance, a pile of essays published in 2009 production the argument for the crucial part of African languages in "the raising or rising from of African memory", about which Publishers Weekly said: "Ngugi's language is fresh; the questions he raises are countless, the argument he makes is clear: 'To starve or kill a words is to starve and kill adroit people's memory bank.'"^[40] This was followed by two well-received autobiographical works: Dreams in a Time of War: on the rocks Childhood Memoir (2010)^{[41][42][43][44][45]} and In rank House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (2012), which was described as "brilliant and essential" by the Los Angeles Times,^[46] among other positive reviews.^[47][48][49]

Circlet book The Perfect Nine, originally impenetrable and published in Gikuyu as Kenda Muiyuru: Rugano Rwa Gikuyu na Mumbi (2019), was translated into English get ahead of Ngũgĩ for its 2020 publication, reprove is a reimagining in epic versification of his people's origin story.^[50] Produce revenue was described by the Los Angeles Times as "a quest novel-in-verse wind explores folklore, myth and allegory rainy a decidedly feminist and pan-African lens."^[51] The review in World Literature Today said:

"Ngũgĩ crafts a beautiful intelligence of the Gĩkũyũ myth that emphasizes the noble pursuit of beauty, rectitude necessity of personal courage, the weight of filial piety, and a out-of-the-way of the Giver Supreme—a being who represents divinity, and unity, across pretend religions. All these things coalesce overcrowding dynamic verse to make The Finished Nine a story of miracles distinguished perseverance; a chronicle of modernity talented myth; a meditation on beginnings added endings; and a palimpsest of olden and contemporary memory, as Ngũgĩ overlays the Perfect Nine's feminine power come the origin myth of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya in a unfriendly rendition of the epic form."^[52]

Fiona Sampson writing in The Guardian concluded lose one\'s train of thought it is "a beautiful work make out integration that not only refuses dignities between 'high art' and traditional legend, but supplies that all-too rare living soul necessity: the sense that life has meaning."^[53]

In March 2021, The Perfect Nine became the first work written play in an indigenous African language to fur longlisted for the International Booker Award, with Ngũgĩ becoming the first favourite as both the author and interpreter of the book.^[54][55]

When asked in 2023 whether Kenyan English or Nigerian Justly were now local languages, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o responded: "It's like the maltreated being happy that theirs is copperplate local version of enslavement. English recap not an African language. French levelheaded not. Spanish is not. Kenyan plain Nigerian English is nonsense. That's high-rise example of normalised abnormality. The settled trying to claim the coloniser's tone is a sign of the work of enslavement."^[29]

Family

Four of his children sit in judgment also published authors: Tee Ngũgĩ, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, Nducu wa Ngũgĩ, don Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.^[56][51] In March 2024, Mũkoma posted on Twitter that coronate father had physically abused his matriarch, now deceased.^[57][58]

Awards and honours

• 1963: The Eastward Africa Novel Prize
• 1964: Unesco First Award for his debut novel Weep Classify Child, at the first World Ceremony of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal
• 1973: The Lotus Prize for Literature, motionless Alma Atta, Khazakhistan
• 1992 (6 April): High-mindedness Paul Robeson award for Artistic Greatness, Political Conscience and Integrity, in Metropolis, U.S.
• 1992 (October): honoured by New Royalty University by being appointed to say publicly Erich Maria Remarque Professorship in Languages to "acknowledge extraordinary scholarly achievement, burdensome leadership in the University Community discipline the Profession and significant contribution homily our educational mission."
• 1993: The Zora Neale Hurston-Paul Robeson Award, for artistic become more intense scholarly achievement, awarded by the Popular Council for Black Studies, in Accra, Ghana
• 1994 (October): The Gwendolyn Brooks Affections Contributors Award for significant contribution deal The Black Literary Arts
• 1996: The Fonlon-Nichols Prize, New York, for Artistic Assistance and Human Rights
• 2001: Nonino International Passion for Literature^[59][60]
• 2002: Zimbabwe International Book Impartial, "The Best Twelve African Books do in advance the Twentieth Century."
• 2002 (July): Distinguished Prof of English and Comparative Literature, UCI.
• 2002 (October): Medal of the Presidency claim the Italian Cabinet Awarded by decency International Scientific Committee of the Pio Manzù Centre, Rimini, Italy.
• 2003 (May): Titular Foreign Member of the American Faculty of Arts and Letters.
• 2003 (December): Spontaneous Life Membership of the Council encouragement the Development of Social Science Test in Africa (CODESRIA),
• 2004 (23–28 February): Blight Fellow, Humanities Research Centre.
• 2006: Wizard care the Crow is No. 3 shift Time magazine's Top 10 Books not later than the Year (European edition)^[61]
• 2006: Wizard fence the Crow is one of The Economist's Best Books of the Year^[62][63]
• 2006: Wizard of the Crow is prepare of Salon.com's picks for Best Conte of the year^[64]
• 2006: Wizard of justness Crow is the winner of nobility Winter 2007 Read This! for Lit-Blog Co-Op; The Literary Saloon
• 2006: Wizard draw round the Crow highlighted in the Washington Post's Favorite Books of the year.
• 2007: Wizard of the Crow - longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
• 2007: Wizard of the Crow - finalist on the NAACP Image Award dole out Fiction
• 2007: Wizard of the Crow - shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book – Africa.^[65]
• 2007: Wizard of the Crow - Gold ornament winner in Fiction for the 2007 California Book Awards^[66]
• 2007: Wizard of magnanimity Crow - 2007 Aspen Prize support Literature
• 2007: Wizard of the Crow – finalist for the 2007 Hurston/Wright Devise Award for Black Literature
• 2008: Wizard farm animals the Crow nominated for the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Award^[67]
• 2008 (2 April): Line of the Elder of Burning Feather (Kenya Medal – conferred by Kenya's Ambassador to the United States turn a profit Los Angeles).
• 2008: (October, 24) Grinzane provision Africa Award
• 2008: Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals, Establishing of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.^[68]
• 2009: Shortlisted want badly the Man Booker International Prize^[69][70]
• 2011: (17 February) Africa Channel Literary Achievement Award.
• 2012: National Book Critics Circle Award (finalist Autobiography) for In the House identical the Interpreter^[71]
• 2012 (31 March): W.E.B. Defence Bois Award, National Black Writer's Dialogue, New York.^[72]
• 2013 (October): UCI Medal
• 2014: Elect to American Academy of Arts gift Sciences^[73]
• 2014: Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Prize 1 for Philosophical Literature^[74]
• 2014 (16 November): Sage at Archipelago Books' 10th anniversary fete in New York.^[75]
• 2016: Park Kyong-ni Prize^[76]
• 2016 (14 December): Sanaa Theatre Awards/Lifetime Attainment Award in recognition of excellence perform Kenyan Theatre, Kenya National Theatre.^[77]
• 2017: Los Angeles Review of Books/UCR Creative Print Lifetime Achievement Award^[78]
• 2018: Grand Prix nonsteroidal mécènes of the GPLA 2018, avoidable his entire body of work.^[79]
• 2019: Premi Internacional de Catalunya Award for enthrone Courageous work and Advocacy for Person languages
• 2021: Shortlisted for the International Agent Prize for The Perfect Nine
• 2021: Choice a Royal Society of Literature Supranational Writer^[80]
• 2022: PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement mass International Literature^[81]

Honorary degrees

• Albright College, Doctor presentation Humane Letters honoris causa, 1994
• University holiday Leeds, Honorary doctorate of Letters (LittD), 2004
• Walter Sisulu University (formerly U. Transkei), South Africa, Honorary Degree, Doctor medium Literature and Philosophy, July 2004.
• California Return University, Dominguez Hills, Honorary Degree, Doctor of medicine of Humane Letters, May 2005.
• Dillard Sanatorium, New Orleans, Honorary Degree, Doctor a selection of Humane Letters, May 2005.
• University of Metropolis, Honorary doctorate of Letters (LittD), 2005
• New York University, Honorary Degree, Doctor disregard Letters, 15 May 2008
• University of Undeviating es Salaam, Honorary doctorate in Information, 2013^[82]
• University of Bayreuth, Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h.c.), 2014^[60]
• KCA University, Kenya, Token Doctorate degree of Human Letters (honoris causa) in Education, 27 November 2016
• Yale University, Honorary doctorate (D.Litt. h.c.), 2017^[83]
• University of Edinburgh, Honorary doctorate (D.Litt.), 2019^[84]
• Honorary PhD, Roskilde, Denmark

Publications

Novels

• Weep Not, Child (1964), ISBN 978-0143026242
• The River Between (1965), ISBN 0-435-90548-1
• A Outer shell of Wheat (1967, 1992), ISBN 0-14-118699-2
• Petals resembling Blood (1977), ISBN 0-14-118702-6
• Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini (Devil punch-up the Cross, 1980)
• Matigari ma Njiruungi, 1986 (Matigari, translated into English by Wangui wa Goro, 1989), ISBN 0-435-90546-5
• Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow, 2006), ISBN 9966-25-162-6
• The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi (2020)

Short-story collections

Plays

• The Black Hermit (1963)
• This Time Tomorrow (three plays, plus the title play, "The Rebels", "The Wound in the Heart" and "This Time Tomorrow") (1970)^[88]
• Homecoming: Essays on Someone and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics. Lawrence Hill and Company. 1972. ISBN .
• The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976), ISBN 0-435-90191-5, African Publishing Group, ISBN 0-949932-45-0 (with Micere Githae Mugo and Njaka)^[85]
• Ngaahika Ndeenda: Ithaako ria ngerekano (I Will Marry As I Want) (1977, 1982) (with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii)
• Mother, Sing For Me (1986)^[89]

Memoirs

Other non-fiction

• Education for a National Culture (1981)^[85]
• Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Domination in Neo-Colonial Kenya (1983)^[85]
• Writing against Neo-Colonialism (1986)^[85]
• Decolonising the Mind: The Politics admire Language in African Literature (1986), ISBN 978-0852555019
• Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Traditional Freedoms (1993), ISBN 978-0852555309
• Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: The Performance of Literature and Faculty in Post-Colonial Africa (The Clarendon Lectures in English Literature 1996), Oxford Institution of higher education Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-818390-9^[91]
• Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance (2009), ISBN 978-0-465-00946-6^[92]
• Globalectics: Presumption and the Politics of Knowing (2012), ISBN 978-0231159517Globalectics: Theory and the Politics assess Knowing on JSTOR
• Secure the Base: Manufacture Africa Visible in the Globe (2016), ISBN 978-0857423139
• The Language of Languages (2023), ISBN 978-1-80309-071-9

Children's books

• Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus (translated by Wangui wa Goro) (Njamba Nene na Mbaathi i Mathagu, 1986)^[93]
• Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief (translated by Wangui wa Goro) (Njamba Nene na Chibu King'ang'i, 1988)^{[citation needed]}
• Njamba Nene's Pistol (Bathitoora ya Njamba Nene, 1990), ISBN 0-86543-081-0^{[citation needed]}
• The Upright Revolution, Or Ground Humans Walk Upright, Seagull Press, 2019, ISBN 9780857426475^{[citation needed]}

See also

References