Renowned Kenyan author, academic and literary icon Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who died on Wednesday, was more than a writer-he was a revolutionary thinker who used language, storytelling, and theatre as tools of liberation.
In his groundbreaking book Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi championed the us of mother tongue, arguing that language was inseparable from culture, identity, and resistance. "To speak one's language is to celebrate one's identity," he famously wrote, "but to impose a language is a way to divide people-it is to practice tribalism of another kind."