Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature

Ngũgĩ begins this chapter with a brief retelling of his imprisonment for being an active participant in the Kamiriithu Community Educational and Cultural Centre. At that time, he was also the Chair and an Assistant Professor in the Literature Department at the University of Nairobi. While it may seem puzzling at first as to why the Kenyan government would imprison a professor and theatre director, Ngũgĩ provides the following explanation that sheds light on the threat posed by Ngũgĩ’s theatre from the eyes of government officials: In my case the regime wanted to keep me away from the university and the village and if possible to break me (64).

In prison, Ngũgĩ had the idea of committing himself to reconceiving the African novel as a literary work that functions in a similar way to African theatre, in that it reconnects African peoples with their heritage and history of heroic anti-colonial struggles. As Ngũgĩ says, this realization came to him when a prison guard warned him against writing novels in his native tongue: “[A] very cruel prison superintendent warned me against any attempts at writing poems—he obviously confused novels with poems. But why a novel? And why Gikuyu language?” (64).

In beginning to reconsider the nature of the African novel, Ngũgĩ underscores two key obstacles that historically hampered its development. First was the fact that “the printing press, the publishing houses and the educational context of the novel’s birth were controlled by the missionaries and the colonial administration” (69). Second, as African peoples began to attend university, the curriculum was dominated by European literature and languages. In this setting, African peoples were well-read in White, English-speaking authors like Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary, or Alan Paton, but were never given the opportunity to develop and study the cultural works of their own people. As Ngũgĩ reflects on his own education in the literature of Europe, he writes that while he is appreciative of their literary styles, there remains a discrepancy between the European novel and the actual experience of dialogue in everyday life and “the conversational norms of the peasantry.”

By contrast, Ngũgĩ’s novel, A Grain of Wheat, incorporates a story-within-a-story structure uncommon in European literature that allows the narrative to “move freely in time and space through the centuries and through all the important landmarks in Kenya’s history from the early times and back to the twelve days duration of the present of the novel” (77). It was only by breaking with the European tradition of the novel that Ngũgĩ was able to accurately capture the reality of Kenyan experience and history. However, before finally committing to writing his novel, Ngũgĩ had to confront a singular problem: “How do you shock your readers by pointing out that these are mass murders, looters, robbers, thieves, when they, the perpetrators of these anti-people crimes, are not even attempting to hide the fact?” (80).

To which Ngũgĩ replies: “Why not tell the story of evil that takes pride in evil? Why not tell the story of robbers who take pride in robbing the masses?” (81). To depict in fiction the evils of imperialism, one must take the perpetrators of violence and exploitation as their main character and depict them as they are. Ngũgĩ ends this chapter by telling the story of his novel’s reception once it was published. It sold more copies than the publisher originally estimated and was published in several languages, increasing its popularity. From this experience of writing a novel in his native tongue and given its wide reception, Ngũgĩ grants that for similar works to become popular, they require receptive publishers, translators, and audiences. Yet in every case, the pattern begins with the writer, whom he calls “the pathfinder” (85).