NGUGI WA THIONG’O

Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born on January 5, 1938 in Limuru, Kenya. Baptized as James Thiong’o Ngugi, he received his education in Uganda and England. He is the founder and editor for a periodical published in Gikuyu.

The University of Nairobi, Northwestern University, Yale University, New York University, and the University of California, Irvine are just a few of the institutions where he has taught.

During his days at the Makerere, he began penning his earliest pieces published in a university magazine. While at the University of Leeds, he came in contact with the writings of Frantz Fanon which are reflected in most of his works. The 1977 publication of his play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), which he co-wrote with Ngugi wa Mirii, a play that explores post-colonial topics such as marriage and family, class struggle, poverty, gender, culture, and religion, led to his arrest at the request of the vice president of Kenya at the time. Books by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin were seized along with copies of his play.

Together with other political prisoners, he was held in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for almost a year without being tried. Notable among his works is A Grain of Wheat, Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening, Devil on the Cross, Dreams in a Time of War, The Black Hermit, The River Between, and Weep Not, Child, to name a few.