Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OWe think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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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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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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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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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Of course it’s very, very important for me to feel Kenya, to feel, every day, this is where images come from. So to be taken away from that by political pressure or other means – one is taken away from the area, which is the basis of inspiration – is difficult.
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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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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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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You 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.
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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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Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
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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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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






