Our 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'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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
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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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We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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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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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O