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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OPeople went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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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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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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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 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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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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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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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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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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 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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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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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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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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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'O