This story is imaginary.
The actions are imaginary.
The characters are imaginary.
The country is imaginary—it has no name even.
Reader/listener: may the story take place in the country of your
choice!
— from T0 THE READER/LISTENER, Matigari, ix
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, UC/Irvine
It all comes back to me now: how much of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and his work is encapsulated in that brief quote above. Novelist, teller of tales, a man who both affirmed the oral, the performative, and the written, fully expressed in his culture and amplified by this giant of African literature. Oh, and the political: never ideologically pushy or coercive, but pointing very clearly to the problems in our various worlds which need be solved… Ngũgĩ’s enormous contribution to the idea of shared orature— a body of stories, tales, song/poetry all told orally, performed and as extensive as the same in written literature when the latter gives back to its community…
I look at the cover of Tim Reiss’ collected Ngũgĩ in the American Imperium and there is a sketch of Ngũgĩ, one of my two most important mentors, and, as said, a giant of African literature. The sketch is of an aged Ngũgĩ, unlike his more robust appearance when I was one of his students and mentees in New York University’s doctoral Comparative Lit program. Over the years after getting my degree our contact had been largely limited to emails and online contact, rather than face to face, the last of that face to face having been when he briefly came to Istanbul where I had been teaching at the time and where a Turkish graduate student had managed to get him invited to give a talk there at Bogacizi University. Oh, and the image of him reading in a Zoom session to celebrate that very book, Ngũgĩ in the American Imperium…
Yes, I knew that, post NYU and subsequently at UC Irvine, Ngũgĩ was having weekly dialysis. That he had had a triple bypass. I did not know that he had contracted that bane of male existence, prostate cancer.
And now, Ngũgĩ has died. Of that cancer.
* * * * *
Oh, Ngũgĩ! I first met Ngũgĩ in 1991. I confess I did not know of him or his work until then. Who was this Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o? I took several classes from him, and these were also the first time I read his writing. I was intrigued as to how the book, Matigari ma Njiruungi, the original Gikuyu version of Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’s 6th novel (simply called Matigari in the English translation), how that book flew off the shelves and onto the streets of Nairobi and beyond. In Kenya, as word spread rapidly about the book’s fictional character, Matigari, in 1986,
…word got to then-President Daniel Arap Moi that a revolutionary called Matigari was going around the country asking awkward questions about truth and justice in postcolonial Kenya. Moi promptly demanded this person be arrested. After the infamous Security Branch reported that Matigari was a character in a novel, Moi demanded they arrest the book.[1]
I also have a vivid, if not odd, memory of the time Ngũgĩ brought the original manuscript of Devil on the Cross into class. As has been widely noted, the book was handwritten on toilet paper, the very rough kind supplied prisoners in Kenya’s Kamĩtĩ Maximum Security Prison where Ngũgĩ was incarcerated for a year without charges, though ostensibly for producing a play in Gikuyu—Ngaahika Ndeenda (I will Marry When I Want.[2] )The play “covers post-colonial themes of class struggle, poverty, gender, culture, religion, modernity vs. tradition, and marriage and family,” [3] and was written by Ngũgĩ but developed with the participants. Clearly his arrest was also because he was considered a political threat by the current regime. No polemicist, Ngũgĩ’s concerns had focused around colonialism and the impact it had on Kenyan indigenous groups like his Gikuyu and others, on Africa and Africans in general, and then on those in other parts of the world. Further, Ngũgĩ was not only politically on the left, and after Kenya threw off the shackles of British colonial rule, he rightly opposed the rule of Jomo Kenyatta who sadly moved, as so many revolutionary leaders have, from first leader of an independent nation to a dictator. Daniel arap Moi, who succeeded the latter, was no better.
It was also during his time incarcerated as prisoner K6,77, in 1978, that Ngũgĩ made the decision to stop writing in English. As he later noted in his Decolonising the Mind [4], “the bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.”[5] I remember him telling us in class, “I thought, how am I going to write a novel in a language that has no novels…?” He resolved the dilemma of how to go about writing such in a language whose tales, epics, verse were from a rich orature rather than a body of literature by framing the novel in terms of a traditional competition rewarding the tale-teller who could brag most eloquently of how he or she achieved spectacular thievery.
But back to the original toilet paper “manuscript”of Caitaani Mutharaba (Devil on the Cross), that he brought to our class. Its pages were an ochre shade, but like stiff wax paper, that clearly would bring discomfort to anyone using it for its original purpose. As Ngũgĩ passed it around, one cloyingly worshipful member of the class (or was he just sitting in?) kissed the manuscript.
How did he do it? Ngũgĩ remained stunningly neutral.
Looking back, I think Ngũgĩ became somewhere between a friend—not a close friend, but someone with whom you could be open in the same way one is with friends—as well as a mentor. I read his fiction first, and then, as I became even more interested in his work and thinking, his non-fiction. He also introduced me to many other African writers—among them Ben Okri and, of course, Wole Soyinka, then poor Ken Saro-Wiwa (struggling for environmental and human rights, Saro-Wiwa was executed for “crimes” vs the petroleum industry—Shell—in the Niger Delta.) Also African women writers Buchi Emecheta (esp. The Joys of Motherhood), Mariama Bâ (So Long a Letter), Tsitsi Dangarembga (Nervous Conditions.)
* * * * *
After leaving NYU and after teaching in Istanbul, I was privileged to receive a Fullbright that allowed me to spend a year in West Africa—in La République du Bénin to be precise. Among the many experiences I had, I have this distinct memory of sitting in on a discussion between several traditional priests: one made a simple comment about the ceremony we had just experienced and, immediately, another chimed in, “Oui, that reminds me of the story of ——.”
“Yes, and then there’s the story of——…”
Soon the room was filled with the recounting of numerous traditional tales.
Recalling that incident and then thinking of Ngũgĩ, yes, there it was: the invocation of orature, every bit as fulsome as a body of literature. Not just in one former student’s mind (mine) but in so many others’, the influence of his thinking persists; and I cannot help but conclude that community is implicit in orature, that vast body of tales performed live and shared by a community, not infrequently seen and spoken of again and again. Indeed, Ngũgĩ‘s last novel, The Perfect Nine (the word “novel” may be a bit inaccurate) is actually an epic, “told and retold as part of the lore of the Gikuyu people,” as Ngũgĩ informs us in the book’s acknowledgements. Ngũgĩ wrote it in Gikuyu and then translated it into English for those who are not versed in the original language.
Epic? The minds of those of us raised in the European tradition immediately wander off to the classics of ancient empire, the Iliad, the Odyssey, which, we were inaccurately told as students, Homer “wrote.” A) No, he didn’t. Rather, after some time, someone wrote down what Homer and others performed orally; and b) both extolled the culture of heroic warrior men, with Ulysees’ Penelope, the patient wife spinning, waiting passively at home, and the active women overwhelmingly portrayed as sirens, seductresses and not quite worthy of these warriors. Alternatively, with the epic tales rooted in his own community’s traditions and told and retold in that community, Ngũgĩ in his written version, Kenda Mũiyuru, The Perfect Nine, now lauded women as primary actors in Gikuyu culture.
At least those of us who might never have the opportunity of enjoying a days long performance of a Gikuyu or other African epic—at least we can read Ngũgĩ’s work. But bear in mind that a reader of books reads alone, then only if possible gets to share his or her thoughts with other readers. Over a cup of coffee in a cafe? A glass of wine? Dinner with friends? A book group? Oh, and a class? Then, too, unlike the retelling of shared tales, how many of us re-read a book of fiction? with others? Certainly, and despite the illusion of sharing, are we not far more alone, glued to our screens and smartphones? Where is the community in that?
* * * * *
Ngũgĩ was always the counterbalance to my rather distracted and forgetful dissertation director, Kamau Brathwaite (much as I—we—indisputably admired and cared for him.) As classes diminished and the time loomed; and it was soon time to write, then defend, my dissertation, I sought Ngũgĩ’s advice more and more frequently. Finally I asked him to sit on my defence committee and to exert some balance on its other members. Which he did.
Given the demands of teaching, assisting various students like myself and others, sitting on various committees as one does in academe, and doing his own research and writing, he was usually there as posted. So it was notable when he was not in his office aas scheduled. I remember a particular time when his absence was a bit lengthier than the occasionally minor lapses: there was no Ngũgĩ. No Ngũgĩ. No Ngũgĩ. Then I when I finally caught up with him, he apologised, saying that he had to be with his wife, Njeri, as they just had a new baby.
Another year and, again, a mysteriously absent Ngũgĩ: “So sorry,” he said when I caught up with him later, “We just had a new baby”
I smiled, “that was what you said the last time.”
He laughed.
Once I came in on the heels of a prior visitor. I apologized for possibly intruding—”Oh, no. Don’t mind. I was just having a French lesson,” he responded. I had not yet gone to Francophone Africa on that Fulbright, where I had observed directly that the assault on African languages and cultures there was as overtly destructive as were those of other colonizing powers. But I had experienced the French assault on other languages while living in Paris—”French?”
“Well, yes. Not a language I studied before.”
English. Kiswahili. His mother tongue, Gikuyu… French???
With regard to his switch from English as his writing language to that of his mother tongue, Gikuyu, later articles about Ngũgĩ quoted him, rightly, as saying about English, the language in which he first made his reputation as a writer,
I don’t want it to be my primary language… if you know all the languages of the world, and you don’t know your mother tongue, that’s enslavement, mental enslavement. But if you know your mother tongue, and add other languages, that is empowerment.[6]
Indeed, in a much later email, when I was then living in Latin America, Ngũgĩ wrote:
Dear Bronwyn,
Good to hear from you. Quiero aprender español. Me puedes enseñar a mi español?[7]
Of all that I learned and appreciated from knowing this man—and, yes, we often shared political views—it was his thoughts on language and oral community were to have most profound affect upon me, intellectually speaking, especially now, as I have learned, with UNESCO estimating languages disappearing at the rate of one every fortnight.
Ngũgĩ’ enjoined me to persevere not just in the dissertation, but long after that was done, in my own work—”Bronwyn, it is better to publish and embark on a new work, rather than endlessly revising the old one.” At that, I remembered it had been nearly 20 years between Ngũgĩ’s Caitaani Mutharaba (Devil on the Cross) and his Mũrogi wa Kagogo (The Wizard of the Crow), and I wondered if he was also speaking of his own struggles to get back to fiction.
On the other hand, his mind and life were so intimately involved with his thinking on, as noted, language, its creative and intellectual uses, that perhaps his return was more evolution than struggle. When he produced Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow, in English) that long-awaited novel, it, too, satirised a corrupt world of an African dictator’s reign—easily, these days, also the corrupt worlds of other nations, even our own. Mũrogi wa Kagogo actually seemed a naturally and continuing evolution of his work, which had always dealt with the importance of language and the offenses of the state against the ordinary citizen, colonial or otherwise.
So much to remember! I look over the emails: infrequent and generally short, regarding some of his more recent work (links inserted are mine)—
I have been idle on the novel front but my third memoir, Birth of a Dream Weaver, comes out on October 4, with the New Press.”
Did I tell of the drama of my fable, The Upright Revolution? You will have to excuse me if I have already done so! I am at an age when my children keep on telling me, you have told us that before!!
Did you know of my latest, The Perfect Nine? It is my first attempt at an epic in verse. Please let your friends know about it.
That he continued with what turned out to be his final novel, Kenda Mũiyuru, The Perfect Nine, which, as mentioned, also lauded women as primary actors in his culture; that he kept developing his work only speaks to his continued evolution as a writer. Indeed, the last email exchange between us, not quite three years ago, just as he become so beset by bad health, nonetheless testifies to the fact that he continued to invent, to create, even—dare we say?—to improvise:
Dear Bronwyn,
Always great to hear from you. I am glad to hear you are reading my first verse attempt at an epic: The Perfect Nine. In the Gikuyu edition, Kenda Mũiyuru, I had to invent my own metric system based on the concept of Nine/Ten. So the lines would be in multiples of ten or Nine, or their variations, line 5, 3 etc. Nine of course is also the nine months in which we all dwell in the womb of our mothers.
Best,
Ngũgĩ
Dammit, I miss him.
[1] 1 We understood that PASS radio broadcast a two hour memorial reading of Ngũgĩ’s work Monday 30 June and Wednesday July 2 at 6 pm (SAST). We have seen that one can listen to some back broadcasts via PASS, and we also expect to see a YouTube version for those who would like to listen.
[2] Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, I will Marry When I Want is a bit tricky to find published by Heinemann, it can be quite expensive, and one may read it online through Internet Archive and such.
[3] Njugi, Joseph M. (2010). A critical analysis of cultural celebration in Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o plays: Mother sing for me and I will marry when i want (co-authored with Ngugi Wa Mirii) (Thesis). University of Nairobi, Kenya.
[4] Or Amazon UK or online at Internet Archive.
[5] The Atlantic online, May 20, 2022, Accessed 24/6/25. Do note that like many children of indigenous peoples, when Ngũgĩ attended school, he was forced to speak the language of the colonizer (English) and beaten if he spoke his own mother tongue.
[6] Italie, Hillel (7 May 2025). “At age 87, Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o remains impassioned about the power of language”. AP News. Retrieved 31 May 2025.
[7] “I want to learn Spanish. Can you teach me Spanish?”
Note bene: Wikipedia offers a complete list of all of Ngũgĩ’s publications. Many can be found at Bookshop.org.