If 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'OI 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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.
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How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?
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The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission.
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Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O






