I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OAny writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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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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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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
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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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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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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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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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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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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?
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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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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.
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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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