A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OIf poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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Our 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.
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People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
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The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
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The 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.
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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?
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In 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.
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Another 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.
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I think a repressive regime always fears people who are awakened – particularly ordinary people. If they are awakened, I think governments all over the world feel uncomfortable about that; they want to be in control.
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What’s good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.
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For me, being in prison writing in an African language was a way of saying: “Even if you put me in prison, I will keep on writing in the language which made you put me in prison.”
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Then 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.
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