ART CHECK: Elegy to Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1938-2025)

The shocking news of Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s demise reached me on the night of Wednesday this week, in the deep stillness of the night.

The somber message came through the sorrowful voice of Prof Miriam Musonye, former chair of the distinguished Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi, Ngũgĩ’s intellectual birthplace and sanctuary.

This loss was not merely personal, it was collective. A grief that resonated not only within our nation but also across the globe. For we had come to cherish the wisdom, fire and fearless vision of this singular figure in the world of literature.

Prof Musonye and I are both members of the Kenya Literary Scholars network, a vivacious cornucopia of more than 400 scribes and intellectuals who have long shared a bond through our collective love of literature.

Since that fateful news, our WhatsApp wall has been abuzz with tributes, each one steeped in deep emotion, accompanied by the tears of those mourning not only the loss of our most prolific author of the past six decades, but also one of the most revered literary voices in the global canon.

Prof Musonye, still shaken by the shock, spoke softly, almost in disbelief, “I spoke with him just last Friday. It hasn’t even been a week.” Her words, poignant and raw, encapsulated the collective sorrow of an entire discipline, a nation, a continent and the wider literary world.

Ngugi was not merely a writer; he was a towering philosopher, a revolutionary, and above all, a teacher whose pen sought to rewrite the future of Africa.

As we mourn the loss of our literary giant, we do so with hearts full of gratitude for a life devoted to the ideals of liberation, justice and cultural integrity. Without question, he was one of the most powerful and influential voices in both African and world literature. For decades, his multiple books have shaped the consciousness of millions.

His epic life, like his epic writings, was the embodiment of the very principles he championed,  with stout roots in socialism, cultural pluralism and an unwavering commitment to decolonisation. His rise from the rural heartland of Limuru, west of Nairobi, to the global stage was not a tale of mere fortune.

It was the story of a man whose spirit was forged in the fires of resistance, and whose intellect was honed by the harsh realities of colonialism and the enduring scars left by its neocolonial aftermath. At his core, he was an advocate for the oppressed. A tireless champion of social justice and a living testament to the power of language as a tool for liberation and elevation.

Ngugi’s approach to decolonisation was as radical as it was profound. He believed that true liberation could not be achieved without the complete reclamation of African identity, which had been deliberately effaced by the forces of colonialism. The first pillar of his ideological foundation, as it was for many African revolutionaries, was the rejection of colonial languages as the medium for African expression.

For him, advocating for vernacular-language literature was not a mere aesthetic preference; it was an act of cultural and political defiance. He understood that language, at its deepest level, is not simply a tool for communication. It is a vehicle of thought, culture and power.

Writing in colonial languages like English, he argued, perpetuated the very colonial domination that had once sought to erase indigenous knowledge systems. His courageous shift to writing in Gikuyu, his mother tongue, was a bold act of resistance, a declaration of cultural self-determination, and a call for all Africans to reclaim their own voices.

In his seminal work, my favourite of all times, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), Ngugi placed language at the centre of the struggle for decolonisation.

His critique of colonial education, which elevated European languages and literatures as the highest standard, was a clarion call for African writers and intellectuals to reclaim their cultural inheritance and to confront the biases embedded within academia and literary production.

For Ngugi, this was more than a mere cultural imperative; it was a social justice issue. Through language, he saw the potential for social change, one that adroitly reorders the African psyche, unshackling it from the orts of colonial oppression.

However, the fallen giant’s genius lay not only in his internal critique but also in his ability to draw connections between local struggles for freedom and global struggles for justice. He recognised the neocolonial reality of post-Independence Africa as a continuation of the colonial project, albeit under new guises.

In revolutionary works such as Petals of Blood (1977), Ngugi exposed lucidly the betrayal of African liberation movements and the rise of a new indigenous bourgeoisie that colluded with foreign powers to perpetuate the exploitation of ordinary African people. The struggle was no longer just against a foreign coloniser but also against the very systems that continued to enrich the few while impoverishing the many.

His ability to unmask this neocolonial reality, and to link it with global patterns of capitalist exploitation, was one of his greatest achievements as a writer. His work, deeply rooted in socialist ideology, placed the economic struggles of ordinary Africans at the heart of the narrative, making clear that social justice is a fight that transcends borders. It connects the aspirations of the Wanjikus of Kenya and yonder.

Ngugi’s literary and political activism made it abundantly clear that African liberation was incomplete without the struggle for economic justice. His vision of decolonisation was not confined to political independence; it was an economic revolution, one in which Africans would regain control over their resources, their labour and their future.

This was socialism in its truest form, an ideology that values human dignity over profit and collective empowerment over individual gain. Through his pen, the sage inspired generations of writers, activists and intellectuals to challenge the status quo and confront the global capitalist system that had long been complicit in the exploitation of the Global South.

Yet to me, his legacy was not only defined by his critique of colonialism and neocolonialism. He was, at his heart, a proponent of cultural pluralism. His works celebrated the richness and diversity of African cultures, languages and traditions, arguing that true freedom can only be realised through the appreciation of these multiple voices and perspectives.

His pioneer novels The River Between (1965) and A Grain of Wheat (1967) explored the complexities of identity in a post-colonial world, acknowledging the tensions between tradition and modernity, between indigenous practices and foreign influences, between rural and urban ways of life. Ngugi believed that freedom could only be realised in societies that embrace cultural plurality, and that any society that suppresses this diversity is bound to repeat the errors of the past.

In his unwavering quest for justice, the maestro never faltered. He believed wholeheartedly in the power of language, culture and social justice to dismantle the structures of oppression that have long shackled Africa and the Global South. His works remain timeless because they speak not only to our ongoing black struggles, but to the broader human struggle for freedom, dignity and equality.

The loss of this high priest of art marks a profound moment of reckoning for the world. The colonial forces that once shaped his life, ironically, also gave rise to the philosopher and writer we so greatly admired. His genius was not shaped by their approval but by his relentless resistance to their history of exploitation. His life’s work was an ongoing mission to document, confront and resist the ideological pollution of imperialism and colonialism, which continues to haunt the oppressed.

As an ancient Mount Elgon proverb reminds us: Wakania sakumbukanga ta, Wakaswala nio akumbukanga (The one who defecates does not remember; the one who steps on the defecation is the one who remembers)! For more than fifty years, the son of Thiong’o stood as that witness, reminding the world of the horrific legacy of colonialism, challenging us all to confront the wounds that still poison the global body politic.

His life, then and therefore, was not an intellectual pursuit per se. It was a resolute stand for justice, for memory and for the power of the oppressed to reclaim their story. As we bid farewell to this national emblem, nay, symbol of our nationhood, let us honour his life by continuing the work he began, by keeping alive his message of cultural pride, economic justice and intellectual independence. Rest in peace, our role model, hero of our anticolonial struggles, Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Your words will echo through the ages.