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'OWhat’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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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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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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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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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The 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.
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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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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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So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O