Kenya in Translation: An Interview with Ngugi wa Thiong'o by Emily Wilson

Kenya's recent political upheaval and news of brutal ethnic clashes need to be understood in terms of the country's political and cultural history. At a reading at the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco, author and activist Ngugi wa Thiong'o, one of the country's most important chroniclers of this history, discussed the relationship between language and oppression.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born in Kenya in 1934 into a Gikuyu farming family. The Mau Mau uprising against the British in the 1950s left a deep impression on him, and much of his writing deals with government corruption, oppression and inequality in society. In 1977, then vice-president Daniel arap Moi ordered Ngugi -- who was teaching at Nairobi University at the time -- arrested and imprisoned for his play I Will Marry When I Want, which he wrote in his native language of Gikuyu -- and which was sharply critical of neo-colonial Kenya. While in prison, Ngugi decided to forsake writing in English and write only in Gikuyu in an effort to revitalize indigenous languages. He wrote the first ever novel in Gikuyu, Devil on the Cross, on prison-issued toilet paper, the only paper available to him.

In 1978, following a campaign by Amnesty International, Ngugi was released from prison. Following his release, he was unable to regain his position at Nairobi University; with Moi elected president, he left Kenya in 1982, going into self-imposed exile in Britain and, later, the United States. [ for more click on the heading]