How Chinua Achebe inspired me
By Henry Akubuiro (ifeanyi_mcdaniels@yahoo.com)
Sunday, June 4, 2006

•Ngugi Photo: Sun News Publishing

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As soon as he wends into the La Palm Beach Royal Hotel, Accra, Ghana, that Thursday morning, curiosity gathers apace. He walks with a little flagging composure, but his appearance bears no absolute obsolescent quaintness. For this occasion, he is spruced up with casual wears.

The indigo patterns on the white shirt radiate splendour. The pair of blue jeans trousers melds beautifully with the black boots. It is an atmosphere of warmth and oneness here, and everybody is as keen as a mustard to get acquainted with the genius. For sure, Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a sight for sore eyes.

“We ‘ll have time to talk later,” he speaks in a silky tone to your request. He has just arrived for the 32nd ALA conference in Accra. The first day, no dice.

Very busy, indeed. The second day you search for an opportunity to wangle a rare chat. Some luck. He is having a one-to-one with Manthia Diawara, the Malian scholar and filmmaker. “Wait a few moments,” he gestures to a seat nearby, heating up a vizzying enthusiasm in you. This moment calls for a subaltern humility to get what you want. Doesn’t the name Ngugi wa Thiong’o ring a bell to you?

A Kikuyu from Kenya, East Africa, Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 in Kamirii, near Limuru, Kiambu District. In 1976, he rejected Christianity, which he was brought up with, and changed his original name, James Ngugi, to Ngugi wa Thiong’o, for he saw it as a sign of colonialism. Educated at Makerere University College, Kampala, Uganda, where he received a B.A. in English in 1963, Ngugi worked briefly as a journalist in Nairobi.

His first play, The Black Hermit, was produced in Kampala in 1962. Two years later, he left for England to pursue graduate studies at Leeds University, England.
His first novel, Weep Not Child, was published in 1964, and it was the first novel in English to be published by an East African. To date, he is famed as the best writer to come out of East Africa.

Weep Not Child tells a story of a young man, Njoroge, who, caught between idealistic dreams and colonial exploitation, missed an opportunity to advance his education. His second novel, The River Between, came out in 1965, with the Mau Mau Rebellion (1952-56) against the colonial establishments, providing the background for the novel. When his third novel, A Grain of Wheat, was published in 1967, some critics saw it as a departure to fanonist Marxism.

Ngugi is noted for his “rebellious” streak. He resigned as an associate professor and the head of Department of Literature, Nairobi University, in the late 1970s as a protest to government’s interference in the university. In 1977, Daniel arap Moi, the then Kenyan vice-president, ordered the detention of Ngugi in Mamiti Maximum Security Prison under Public Security Act for a year without trial for his involvement with a communal theatre in his home village. The play, Ngaahika Ndeeda, translated to I Will Marry When I Want (1997), written with Ngugi wa Mirii, recaptures his prison ordeal. The shenanigans of post-independent Kenya, by extension, Africa, provided the basis of his novel, Petals of Blood (1978).

In his book, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), he asserts that African writers should write in indigenous languages in order to reach out to the masses. The novel, Caitaaani Muthara-Ini (Devil on the Cross), was the first modern novel written in Gikuyu, the language of the largest tribe in his country. In 1992, he became a professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University, USA. He has taught at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Bayreuth, Yale, Amherst, Smith, etc. Apart from being a scholar, novelist and playwright, Ngugi is also a critic, and has published copiously in that regard.

He ambles to your direction with grace, with his little bag slung across his shoulder, after the tete-a-tete with Diawara, his dignity eliciting reciprocation. Intermittently, he sneaks a glance at his wristwatch. He has a session to catch up with in thirty minutes. No time to waste. First, he goes back in time, reeling out writers from his generation, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark and Christopher Okigbo, who, together with him and others, pioneered modern African literature in English.

“That period was one of intense colonization and anti-colonial struggle. We came from a period where there is a lot of energy generated by that struggle,” he says in monotone. “I think this energy of decolonization, this energy of the masses, must have been felt by the young intellectuals emerging from the new universities of Makerere, Ibadan and Ghana. This is the energy that made us.” A jaunty smile hovers on his lips. “This is the energy that made me. I ‘m a child of that struggle,” he stiffles a laugh after the emphasis.

There is a modicum of nostalgia in his tone as he keeps talking. “Of course, that period produced novels like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of Forest, My own Weep Not Child, and others. This period,” he remarks, “was followed by one of tremendous disappointment.” Since 1982, Ngugi has been living in exile abroad. His first ever visit to Kenya after many years ended in a sorry tale last year, with the raping of his wife, Njeeri, which caused him much emotional turbulence.
Reminded of the comments by some Kenyans on BBC Focus on Africa programme some time ago that he has failed to translate his literary activism, which was profound in his pro-Mau Mau sentiments in his novels, to social activism, he provides a bifurcated response, first with the Mau Mau struggle.

“Mau Mau is the most important event in Kenyan history, even in African history. Mau Mau war, which started in 1952, was the first armed struggle in the colony of Britain. Remember that, unlike other liberation wars that happened afterwards, the Mau Mau didn’t have any basis outside Kenya because all they got, they made themselves. In terms of sheer impact on British colonialism, it was immense. That is why it’s so prominent in my works.”

On his recent stoic resignation, Ngugi counters that a writer is not under any obligation to be a social activist. If he chooses to, it is merely on his own volition. His explanation has a sagacious ring to it: “A writer has to function as a writer first and foremost. Whatever else he does, like going to parliament, becoming a leader of a liberation movement, a trade unionist, or any other thing, those things are important, but they are not necessarily his function as a writer.

“In other words, anybody could become a revolutionist, a trade unionist or politician, but it does not necessarily mean he is a writer. Writers are those who use pen and paper to express a certain view, but, of course, he can do additionally to that. It depends on different individuals. There are writers who have become parliamentarians or trade unionists. We also have writers who won’t become any of these things, yet we demand a certain thing on their art,” he says, nodding his head in affirmation.

Writers often find it difficult to identify any of their works as the best. His response to this inquiry carries a whiff of the gnomic: “The one dearest to my heart is the one I haven’t written. For every writer, at least for me, there is that novel you strive for, and every time you think you have done it, you realize you haven’t done it. You still go back to the drawing board and start all over again. When you think you are about to make it that novel you really want to write, when you finish, you find you haven’t written it yet. I still have yet to find the novel I really want to write,” he declares to your astonishment.

Not even Weep Not Child that is acclaimed by readers of all ages? His visage evinces a desire to relax his stance. Yes, he does: “I presume, by the way, that the one [a novel] which is coming out in August, Wizard of the Crow, will be one of the most challenging of the novels I have written. I’m hoping that readers ’ll will like it,” he says, punctuating with a “Ya, ya” mannerism. Confidently and genially, he shows you the advance copy of the magnum opus to have a feel.

His contention that African writers must use their indigenous languages to give the African literature its own genealogy and grammar has been contested by many scholars, including Ghana’s Kofi Awoonor, who, at a conference on African literature many years ago, spoke in his native Akran language and asked him to interpret, to the roar of all present. Does he still think the idea is the cat’s pyjamas? Recantation is a remote possibility for Ngugi. The vehemence in his voice says it all.

“It’s very important we write in Africa languages, whether in Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Gikuyu or Zulu. But we must go to the next stage of having our works translated either into English or French or, to me, even more important, having works in different African languages being translated directly because, note, for instance, the Bible was originally written, presumably, in Hebrew or Greek, but not many Africans know Greek or Hebrew, but we read the Bible through translation,” he notes.

“T ranslation enables two languages to be in conversation,” he says with an inflected lilt. And his contention is not restricted to literary texts. He thinks newspapers could do the same. “There is no reason why there are no Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa daily or weekly, or, are there any?” he asks you. “This is very bad for Nigeria, bad for Kenya, bad for South Africa, bad for Africa.”

The celebrated Kenyan writer holds some of his contemporaries from Nigeria in great awe. “Chinua Achebe is a very inspiring person,” he announces matter-of-factly. “He inspired many African writers,” he says. Then he broadens the list to include Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo and J. P. Clark: “They were part of that generation that put African writing in English on the world map.”

He bristles back to Chinua Achebe: “The only thing about Achebe which is important is that, unlike others, he was the founding editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series. In that capacity, he had a big impact on African writing in English as a whole. In my own case, he was the one I first showed the manuscript of Weep Not Child, which he sent to Heinemann, also his publishers. So, he had that impact on my own work, particularly Weep Not Child.

Asked to comment on the state of African literature after his own generation, Ngugi is delighted by the African writers who have taken up the challenge to write in indigenous languages, and he sees it as the most important movement that is unfolding in African literature. “To me, that’s the most important movement taking place in Africa today,” he admits. “It may not be visible. It may be in nascent form, but that’s where to look forward to, for the future of African literature – not in English, not French, not Portuguese, but I African languages,” he maintains.

In an interview granted Ernest Emenyonu in the book, Omenka the Master Artist: Critical Perspective on Chinua Achebe (2004), Achebe avers that African writers should strive to balance the story between Africa and the West in the 21st century. Charles Nnolim, writing in African Literature Today vol. 25, advises African writers to go beyond the African setting. Has he any opinion on this? Ngugi replies: “All our concerns then, now and in future, I hope, is our African societies. But, of course, we can borrow from other traditions. There is nothing wrong in borrowing ideas.

There is nothing wrong in getting inspired by other traditions just as the product of the African imagination has inspired others. In the same way, African writers should not be afraid of opening up to other possibilities. But our focus has to, and should always be, primarily, the African society. However, it does not mean that if you write for an African society, it’s not only Africans that are going to read you, just as we read Russian literature or any other literature.”

Ngugi, on further prodding, admits he is aware of the complaint by some readers that the structure of his novel, Petals of Blood, is monolithic, but says that it was not deliberate to befuddle readers. “As a writer, you write to be read; you don’t write not to be read. A writer doesn’t write for himself; he writes for others,” he harps with sermonizing decibels, stressing: “It’s your job to make your work accessible as much as possible as you can, hoping that somehow you ‘ll succeed in making yourself accessible.”
Ngugi speaks for the African writers’ tribes, whose offerings, he says, have made a big impact on the imagination of African people.

“When Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka or Ama Ata Aidoo, as examples, go to any part of Africa, they are seen as heroes and heroines of that country. In other words, African literature, whether in English or in translation in African languages, is one pan-African commodity shared by Africans as a whole.” In Kenya, he informs that people also feel that Wole Soyinka is one of theirs the same way the feel that Ama Ata Aidoo, Ayi Kwei Armah and Kofi Awoonor are part of them. “In the same way, I go to Zimbabwe or Ghana, and I feel welcomed by Ghanaians, Zimbabweans and Nigerians.”

Ngugi is currently a distinguished professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Irvin, USA. So, you wonder if he has time to relax at all. “I relax by reading,” he says cooly. With his face creasing with smile, he gives you a pat on the back and announces his exit. Ngugi has the charm to make your day.