We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThey 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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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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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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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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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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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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 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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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'O