(1938–2025). Ngugi Wa Thiong’o was the pen name of James Thiong’o Ngugi, who was considered East Africa’s leading novelist. His 1964 novel Weep Not, Child was the first major novel published in English by an East African author.
Ngugi was born in Limuru, Kenya, on January 5, 1938. He graduated from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, in 1963 and earned another degree from Leeds University in England a year later. Until 1970 he served as editor of Zuka, an English-language review, and for a time he also edited the Sunday Nation in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
Weep Not, Child is the story of a Kikuyu family during the period of Kenya’s struggle for independence and the Mau Mau rebellion against British control in Kenya. A Grain of Wheat (1967) covers the same period from a different perspective and is considered a better novel. An earlier novel, The River Between (1965), deals with the conflict between Christianity and traditional tribal ways. Petals of Blood (1977) deals with social and economic problems in East Africa after independence, particularly the continued exploitation of peasants and workers by foreign business interests.
Ngugi presented his ideas on literature, culture, and politics in numerous essays and lectures, which were collected in Homecoming (1972), Writers in Politics (1981), Barrel of a Pen (1983), Moving the Centre (1993), and Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams (1998). In Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), Ngugi argued for African-language literature as the only authentic voice for Africans. He stated his own intention of writing only in Kikuyu or Kiswahili from that point on. Such works earned him a reputation as one of Africa’s most articulate social critics. A collection of short stories entitled Secret Lives was published in 1975. Ngugi also wrote plays, starting with The Black Hermit (1962). Other plays include This Time Tomorrow (1967) and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1984).
Ngugi was a lecturer at Northwestern University in Illinois and at University College in Nairobi. For a time he headed the department of literature of the University of Nairobi. Ngugi was imprisoned in Nairobi from 1977 to 1978 after the staging of I Will Marry When I Want, a controversial play he coauthored. He then moved to England, where he published Detained (1981), a novel based on his ordeal. I Will Marry When I Want (published in 1980) is an outspoken attack on capitalism, neocolonialism, and religious hypocrisy in central Kenya. Matigari (1986) is a novel in a similar vein.
After a long exile from Kenya, Ngugi returned in 2004 with his wife to promote his novel Murogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow). It brings the dual lenses of fantasy and satire to bear upon the legacy of colonialism. Several weeks after his return, Ngugi and his wife were brutally assaulted in their home. The attack was believed by some to be politically motivated. After their recovery, the couple continued to publicize the book abroad.
Ngugi later published the memoirs Dreams in a Time of War (2010), about his childhood, and In the House of the Interpreter (2012), which was largely set in the 1950s during the Mau Mau rebellion. Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening (2016) is a chronicle of his years at Makerere University. Ngugi died on May 28, 2025, in Buford, Georgia.
