Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o , the Kenyan writer, thinker, and activist whose work profoundly shaped African literature and postcolonial thought has passed away.
I was first introduced to the work of the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe by my maternal uncle.
I read Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” written in 1958.
Then I got drawn to writings championing indigenous languages and cultural self-determination.
That made me read several authors : Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Mahasweta Devi, Bama Faustina Soosairaj , U.R. Ananthamurthy.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was a very deep person in what he saw and explained through his writing.
I highly recommend his short story “The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright” and it’s easily accessible.
His core observation was that dominance by one or two nations, culture and languages ought not to lead to cultural homogenisation.
“If you know all the languages of the world and you don’t know your mother tongue, or the language of your culture, that is enslavement.”
— Decolonising the Mind (1986)
No language is ever marginal to the community that created it. Languages are like musical instruments. You don’t say, let there be a few global instruments, or let there be only one type of voice all singers can sing in……
RIP
