A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OA person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThen they begin to see through their language that the problems described there are the same as the problems they are having. They can identify with characters from another language group.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThrough the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThe Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OWhy did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
NGUGI WA THIONG'OI’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OIf poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OIf a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OChristianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
NGUGI WA THIONG'OAnother phenomenon developing in Kenya is ethnic cleansing – and that’s the thing that has made me very sad. Because some people will use the cover of the problems of rigged elections to do things that are unacceptable like ethnic cleansing and displacement of people. It’s completely unacceptable.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThe Bible in translation is being read to thousands and thousands in Africa. It is an integral part of their functioning and the way they look at the world.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OYou get another person who operates only in an African language and there are many persons who operate only in African languages; he or she is excluded from all the goodies that come with English.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OIn terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship – between languages and communities – because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThe Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OSo we’re talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people’s lives in history.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OOur lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O