They want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThey want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.
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'OPeople went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OI’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OAny writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OAnd even in terms of justice, law codes, the legal system. A person who does not know English in Africa is excluded from that system because he can only operate through acts of translation.
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'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'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'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'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'OLife, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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'OSo what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThe 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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThe same questions are there in Native American languages, they’re there in native Canadian languages, they’re there is some marginalized European languages, like say, Irish.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O