Former political prisoner and exile Ngugi wa Thiong’o captivated an audience of more than 250 people Wednesday evening as he discussed his life, his academic work and his activism.
The University hosted the acclaimed Kenyan novelist for a lecture in the Knight Law Center on “Planting African Memory: The Role of a Scholar in a Postcolonial World.”
During the hour-and-a-half event, Thiong’o focused on the connection between language and memory and the role that connection has played in his work.
Thiong’o was invited to the University by members of the African Studies committee, who were searching for a lecturer who would appeal to several departments.
“We were brainstorming, and his name came up as most important in many departments,” anthropology and international studies professor Stephen Wooten said. “He brings a critical perspective to campus.”
Thiong’o has been called East Africa’s foremost novelist, writing many acclaimed novels including “Weep Not, Child,” “A Grain of Wheat,” “The River Between” and “Devil on the Cross.” Thiong’o has also written nonfiction works and children’s books. He has taught at universities in Africa, Europe and the United States and is currently the director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine, where he is a distinguished professor of English and Comparative Literature.
Thiong’o studied at universities in Uganda and England, writing his first novels while still a student. After studying, he became a professor at the University of Nairobi. In addition to teaching at the university, Thiong’o and his colleagues taught in the local villages, where he first began to notice the connection between language and memory.
“My books were written in English, and teaching in the village, there was the issue of which language will we use,” Thiong’o said.
In 1977, Thiong’o co-wrote a play entitled “Ngaahika Ndeenda,” meaning “I will marry when I want” in English. It was written in Kikuyu, the local language of
the community.
“I chose the language because there was no other way to reach the community,” Thiong’o said.
The play became so popular among the Kikuyu farmers and workers that the government banned the play, fearing political dissent. Thiong’o was arrested and taken to a maximum-security prison.
“I was taken without a name, a title, nothing, no trial even,” Thiong’o said. “I was thinking about the issue of language and why I was put in a maximum-security prison for writing a play when it raised the same issues as books I had written in English.”
The time in prison led Thiong’o to decide he would no longer write in English but in an African language in order to find a way of connecting with himself, he said.
During the lecture, Thiong’o explained how changing the language of a community alienates the community economically, socially and politically.
“If you get at the language of a people, you are getting at the cement of their political structure,” Thiong’o said. “You control the memory of that community. Naming is the way you identify things, and it establishes relationships.”
Thiong’o used the example of “Robinson Crusoe,” in which the man Crusoe met is called Friday.
“He says, ‘Your name is Friday,’ not, ‘What is your name,’” Thiong’o said. “Then he called himself master, so wherever they went, when people asked, ‘Who is that man?’ Friday said, ‘That is master.’”
Thiong’o also applied the concept to New England, in which the memory we have of states such as New York and New Jersey is in reference to England.
“I was writing about African history that can only be seen in an English frame of reference,” Thiong’o said.
Thiong’o said part of the solution is sensitizing people to remembering that there are other languages and often the language used is not native or local.
“It is still colonialization in Africa the way we have turned away from our primary languages,” Thiong’o said. “Our language is connecting us to that memory as our starting point for our engagement with the rest of the world.”

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