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'OI’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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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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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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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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So we’re talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people’s lives in history.
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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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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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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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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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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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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'O