Tributes to acclaimed African literature giant Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, who has died at 87

NAIROBI, Kenya — In a bookstore in Kenya's capital, the proprietor arranged a shelf exclusively carrying books by Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, who died Wednesday in the United States.

Bennet Mbata, who has sold African literature at the Nuria Bookstore for more than 30 years in Nairobi, said he enjoyed reading Ngũgĩ's writing and is sad ''he'll never write again.''

Following Ngũgĩ's death at 87 in Bedford, Georgia, Kenyans remember when his writing criticized an autocratic administration, which led to his arrest and imprisonment in the 1970s.

Tributes came from across Africa, including contemporaries like the continent's first Nobel literature laureate, Wole Soyinka, who described Ngũgĩ's influence on African literature as ''unquestionably very massive.''

Ngũgĩ commonly said Soyinka inspired him as a writer. Both also had similar experiences, living through colonialism and political imprisonments.

Ngũgĩ would be remembered as a ''passionate believer of the central phrase of African languages in literature,'' Soyinka told The Associated Press. ''He believed that the literature needs to be as much African as possible,'' he added.

He also lamented the political imprisonment Ngũgĩ endured as a result of his writing. ''He was one of the African writers who paid the most unnecessary price for the pursuit of the natural occupation (as a writer),'' Soyinka said.

‘True reflection of society'

Kenya's President William Ruto on Thursday paid tribute to the man he called ''the towering giant of Kenyan letters,'' saying Ngũgĩ's courage shaped thoughts around social justice and abuse of political power.

''His patriotism is undeniable, and even those who disagree with him will admit that Prof. Thiong'o's discourse always sprang forth from a deep and earnest quest for truth and understanding, devoid of malice, hatred or contempt,'' Ruto wrote on X.

Macharia Munene, a professor of history and international relations at the United States International University-Africa, in Nairobi, said Ngũgĩ's work was ''hard hitting'' but also a ''true reflection of society.'' Munene said he regrets Ngũgĩ didn't receive the Nobel Prize for Literature despite several nominations.

Munene described the author as one of the few African writers whose writing was different. ''He wrote English like an African, another gift that very few people have,'' Munene told The Associated Press, noting that Ngũgĩ later transitioned to only writing in his native Gikuyu language.

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga sent condolences to the author's family, saying ''a giant African has fallen.''

The author's son and fellow writer, Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ, posted a tribute on X: ''I am me because of him in so many ways, as his child, scholar and writer.''

At Ngũgĩ's Kenyan home in Kamirithu, in Kiambu county, on the outskirts of Nairobi, workers were seen trimming fences and clearing bushes in preparation for mourners and visitors alike.

Fellow Kenyan writer David Maillu, 85, told the AP that Ngũgĩ ''touched the hearts of the people'' by writing about the ''cultural destruction'' that took place during colonization.

Indigenous language of literature

Born in 1938, Ngũgĩ's first books told the story of British colonial rule and the uprising by Mau Mau freedom fighters.

Since the 1970s, he mostly lived in exile overseas, emigrating to England and eventually settling in California, where he was a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

Some literary critics have argued that Ngũgĩ's preference of his native Kikuyu language over foreign languages was as influential in his writing as it was in his honors.

''What separates Ngugi from his Nobel predecessor is his brave and polemical decision to write in his first language, Gikuyu,'' British researcher Zoe Norridge wrote in 2010.

Chika Unigwe, a Nigerian writer and an associate professor of writing at Georgia Collede and State University, Milledgeville, Georgia, recalled her interaction with Ngũgĩ about whether African writers should write in their indigenous language.

''While I agreed with him that linguistic imperialism is a serious issue — one we must confront as part of the broader decolonization of our literature — I disagreed with the idea that writing in indigenous languages is a practical solution for most of us,'' Unigwe told the AP.

''He believed passionately in the power of writing to challenge oppression,'' she recalled.

Lasting influence

Ngũgĩ's influence is far and wide across Africa. In Nigeria, Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera, an author and director of the local Umuofia Arts and Books Festival, recalled how the late author's work influenced him even as a science student nearly 10 years ago.

He first read his book, ''A Grain of Wheat,'' which explored colonialism and Kenya's struggle for independence from British colonial rule, and met him shortly after at a literary event, a photo of which he shared on Wednesday as he mourned Ngũgĩ.

''It was a book that took me back to what the colonial struggle was like (and) he was one of those writers that introduced me to the fundamental role language plays in literature,'' he said.

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Asadu reported from Dakar, Senegal.