What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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'O