There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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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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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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Those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow […] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes
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People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
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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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And 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.
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The 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.
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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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I was wondering why I was put in prison for working in an African language when I had not been put in prison for working in English. So really, in prison I started thinking more seriously about the relation between language and power.
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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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O






