Ngugi wa Thiong'o
1938 – 2025 Kenyan novelist, playwright, essayist, professor
Kenya's foremost novelist, detained without trial in 1977 and a leading voice for writing African literature in African languages.
- Affiliations
- University of Nairobi, Kamiriithu community theatre
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, born at Kamiriithu in Limuru, wrote landmark novels including 'Weep Not, Child', 'A Grain of Wheat' and 'Petals of Blood'. After his Gikuyu-language community play 'Ngaahika Ndeenda' angered the authorities, he was detained without trial in 1977-78, and he wrote the novel 'Devil on the Cross' on prison toilet paper. He went into exile after threats and argued, in 'Decolonising the Mind', for African writers to work in African languages. He died in 2025.
Connections
- rival of Jomo Kenyatta — Detained without trial under Kenyatta's government over his Gikuyu-language theatre.
In the timeline
- 1963 Flag Independence and the Loyalist Victory Thesis mentioned
- 1977 The Critique: A Nationalist Who Preserved the Colonial Order mentioned
- 1977 Ngugi wa Thiong'o is detained and Kamiriithu theatre banned central figure
- 1977 Ngugi wa Thiong'o detained for a play central figure