Remembering Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Today marks the first anniversary since the death of literary icon Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Ngugi passed away aged 87 on May 28, 2025 in the US where he had been living since he fled Kenya in 1982 following run-ins with the government of the day over his writing. 

After his exile, Ngugi first came back to Kenya after 22 years in 2004.

And a year after his death, Kenya's literary circles still feel the weight of his literary presence. Just last week, the TBC Penmanship Awards named Ngugi in their Lifetime Achievement Award category for being a "literary icon and global champion of African literature."

Playwright Adipo Sidang' remembers Ngugi as an anti-imperialist who questioned the collective intention of the West towards Africa and other minorities.

"If there was an urgent thought from Ngugi’s works that the global literary world should consider, it would be rejection of neocolonialism and the global capitalist orientation of the Bretton Woods institutions. The question is, how can literature cure nations from the dependence syndrome?" he asks.

"Ngugi had become a giant of Africa, not only because of his works of fiction but also because of his philosophy. Perhaps it is Africans and world minorities who mostly feel the void given his unpopular views on the use of language in literature," said Sidang'.

"Ngugi’s contribution to literature is two-fold: in his works of fiction which mostly addressed the Kenyan colonial question and post-colonial intricacies, both in the context of corruption, betrayal and corruption, again mostly situated within the Gikuyu nation. This is reflected in his novels and plays," said Sidang'.

Ngugi was a strident advocate of the use of African languages to tell the African experience. 

Following his death, Charles Cantalupo, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative Literature, and African Studies, Penn State. had this to say to The Conversation, "... he codified his declaration of African language independence in co-writing The Asmara Declaration, which has been widely translated. It advocates for the importance and recognition of African languages and literatures."

Ngugi's work, Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature, is widely his best non-fiction work. The seminal collection of essays put forward his case for the use of African languages. 

He himself practised what he preached, going on to write at at least nine books, indluding children's texts, plays and novels in his native Kikuyu. These include some of his major works like the novel Caitaani Mutharabaini (Devil on the Cross) and the play Ngaahika Ndenda (I Will Marry When I want).

"In Ngugi lies a juxtaposition of failure and success. Failure because Ngugi’s attempt to transform post-colonial literature through use of mother tongue as the sole literary language proved impractical. Success because at the theoretical / ideological level, ‘Decolonising the Mind’ earned its remarkable place in literary discourses in universities and literary spaces across the world," said Sidang'.

He argues that the success of Ngugi’s decolonization of language lies in the discourse, not in the actual writing of fiction in indigenous languages.

"African writers want to be read widely and they want to earn from their trade; those who control the literary language also control commerce and knowledge production. That’s why African writers ignored Ngugi and didn’t stop writing in the colonial languages, he said. 

The legend passed away having never won the Nobel Prize for Literature despite his larger than life contribution to African literature, a major sticking point for his fans. 

In the weeks leading up to his death Ngugi had been heavily involved, albeit virtually, in the rehearsal for the performance of his play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi at the Kenyan National Theatre. The show went on stage at the theatre nearly a month after his death on June 19 to 29. 

The show by the Nairobi Performing Arts Studio included  Ngugi's voice narrating part of the script. 

Three years earlier in 2022, the same troupe had performed another of Ngugi's plays I Will Marry When I want (Ngaahika Ndenda), co-written with Ngugi wa Mirii, making it the first time in it was being performed comprehensively before a Kenyan audience.

When the play was staged by the Kamiirithu Community and Cultural Centre in 1977, it was banned and barely a month later, both authors were arrested. The centre itself was demolished by armed policemen in 1982.