RIP Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) joins the people of Kenya, the African continent, and the global literary community in mourning the passing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, a titan of African literature, and a fierce proponent of decolonisation who devoted his life to imagining a truly liberated Africa.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was born in 1938, in Kamiriithu, a village near Limuru in Britishoccupied Kenya, during a time of great upheaval and oppression. His upbringing years were shaped by the colonial violence of the British Empire and, most profoundly, by the Kenyan war for independence, led by the Mau Mau, whose ideals of freedom, land, and dignity became the foundation of his lifelong political and literary mission. He was a child of the Mau Mau, and his literature was a vessel through which their struggle continued.

Ngũgĩ’s literary career began with the play “The Black Hermit” (1962) and the novel “Weep Not, Child” (1964), the first major novel in English by an East African. This was followed by “The River Between” (1965) and “A Grain of Wheat” (1967), each more politically charged than the last, reflecting a commitment to radicalism and critique of post-independence betrayal. In these early works, Ngũgĩ challenged the illusion of freedom that came with supposed independence while the masses remained landless and poor.

By the 1970’s, he had fully embraced the importance of African languages as a tool of resistance and identity, renouncing English as his medium of writing and adopting Gikuyu. Consequently, he co-authored and staged “Ngaahika Ndeenda” (I Will Marry When I Want) in his hometown, which spoke directly to the exploitation of the working class and the complicity of the Kenyan elite. For this act of cultural and political defiance, Ngũgĩ was arrested and detained without trial by the regime of Daniel Arap Moi, then President of Kenya, spending a year in prison, where he wrote the novel “Devil on the Cross” (1980), most diligently, on toilet paper.

After his release, Ngũgĩ went into exile in 1982, first in the United Kingdom, and later in the United States where he continued his academic work at esteemed institutions such as Northwestern University, Yale University, New York University, and ultimately as Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

His later works, including “Wizard of the Crow” (2006), and his acclaimed memoirs like “Dreams in a Time of War” (2010) and “Birth of a Dream Weaver” (2016) widened the scope of African literature by blending myth and satire, but still maintaining the essence of the revolution. “Wizard of the Crow,” in particular, stands as an allegory of postcolonial Africa’s descent into dictatorship, conspicuous consumption, and foreign dependence.

Ngũgĩ was also fundamental in defining the theory of decolonisation, best known for his essay collection “Decolonising the Mind” (1986), which remains a sacred text in African literature. This is a seminal text that informs what it means to remove the psychological weight of colonisation and for African people to search for who they truly are in order to find true freedom.

Ngũgĩ’s legacy lives on not only in his books but in his children, some of whom have followed in his footsteps. His lifetime achievements were also recognised with numerous honorary doctorates and prestigious awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature in 2022, the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize and the Catalonia International Prize in 2019 and the Nonino International Prize for Literature in 2001. He was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 and longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2001.

The EFF particularly holds Ngũgĩ in high regard because his work was infused with a firm belief in socialist transformation, a system where the wealth of a nation serves its people, not the elite. He saw the limitations of post-independence liberalism and the betrayal of the masses by African leaders who embraced capitalism and Western validation over true sovereignty.

His novels, plays, and essays remind us that without radical economic transformation, without communism rooted in African realities, political freedom is a façade. If we are to move forward, we must heed Ngũgĩ’s call for an African future where our land, our languages, and our economies are fully in our hands. That is the true liberation that Ngũgĩ envisioned and one that the EFF continues to fight for.

For this we say, may you rest in revolutionary peace, Mwalimu.

The EFF conducts training programs for its members to enhance political skills.

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