Decolonising the Mind by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Decolonising the Mind by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong

He has also previously taught at Northwestern University, Yale University, and New York University. In the United States, he is currently Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine.

Adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, the artist was released from prison, and fled Kenya. Ngũgĩ was subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Although his landmark play, Ngaahika Ndeenda, co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, was a commercial success, it was shut down by the authoritarian Kenyan regime six weeks after its opening. His project sought to 'demystify' the theatrical process, and to avoid the 'process of alienation produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers' which, according to Ngũgĩ, encourages passivity in 'ordinary people'. In 1977, Ngũgĩ embarked upon a novel form of theatre in his native Kenya that sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be 'the general bourgeois education system', by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, is translated into 100 languages from around the world. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He has been described as having been 'considered East Africa’s leading novelist'. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o ( Gikuyu pronunciation: born James Ngugi 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. Kamiriithu, Kenya Colony (present day Kiambu County, Kenya)

Decolonising the Mind by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o