Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
-
-
If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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'O -
So 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'O -
Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised – so it’s no longer “in the closet,” as it were. It’s part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O -
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?
NGUGI WA THIONG'O