Ngugi's House of Interpreters

Ngugi wa Thiong’o has a new book; it is a memoir. Reviews are already coming in; it is left for you to decide whether Ngugi does justice to his story, to history by reading a copy.

Scotsman.com writes;

This is a compelling memoir, and an interesting companion to his novels: I hope further volumes are being written. It is odd, however, that there is no note to tell the reader whether Ngugi wrote this first in English or Gikuyu, given how important the use of indigenous languages has been to him (indeed, it was the point of disagreement between Achebe and Ngugi). He has in the past translated his Gikuyu into English and spoken movingly about English having a redemptive role as a “meta-language” in allowing minority languages to communicate with each other. Either way, a fine and fiery book.

Hector Tobar of LA Times writes;

"In the House of the Interpreter," the new memoir by the celebrated African writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, takes us to the hopeful and turbulent world of 1950s Kenya. And it begins with a startling image.

Ngugi is a teenager, returning home from his prestigious boarding school. He's finished his first term at the top of his class and is still wearing his khaki school uniform and blue tie. Carrying his belongings in a wooden box, he reaches the ridge where his village should come into view. But it's not there.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o: Linguistic Power-sharing

Ngugi wa Thiong’o's Address at the 2012 Sunday Times Literary Awards, also published here.

I feel honored to be invited this evening of literary awards. I congratulate the winners and recipients and I hope the awards will spur them to great heights in their writing career. I have interesting relations to literary prizes. The first occasion was in 1962 at the world premier of my play The Black Hermit at the National Theater Kampala, Uganda. I was a poor student so I was very happy to learn that a manuscript that I had submitted for a novel writing competition the year before had won a prize for the best among all the entries submitted but still not good enough to get the first prize. I was awarded the second prize. Still, I thought my financial worries were over. Well, what I got was five dollars in today’s value although then it would have had the buying power of twenty five dollars. The novel, The River Between, has been in print ever since its first publication in 1965.

It was during the celebration of its publication that I learnt that my second novel Weep Not, Child, but the first published, had won UNESCO First prize in Fiction at the First Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Dakar, Senegal, 1965. Again I was a student, this time at Leeds, in England, and I recall my professors and fellow students congratulating me and asking how I was going to spend the UNESCO fortune. Well, as it turned out, not a single dollar was attached to the prize. It was an honorary first prize. I am sure I could have done with something less honorary and more monetary, but really, it was still an honor to have the novel singled out by a jury that included the legendary Leon Damas who with Sedar Senghor and Aime Cesaire invented the concept of negritude when all three were students in the Paris of the 1930s.

Writers and artists value prizes and monetary rewards of course. But they hardly write for monetary prizes and if they did, most would starve to death waiting for returns commensurate with the time invested. My own novels take me anywhere between one to five years to write and when published it takes a few more years to build a loyal readership. The best seller that sells in millions is a very rare beast. But like prophets and seers, writers are driven by a force, an irresistible desire to give to the inner impulses, the material form of sound, color and word. This desire cannot be held back by laws, tradition, or religious restrictions. The song that must be sung will be sung; and if banned, they will hum it; and if humming is banned, they will dance it; and if dancing is banned, they will sing it silently to themselves or to the ears of those near, waiting for the appropriate moment to explode. Killing the singing goose is the only way of stopping the golden voice of conscience.

Art in its broadest sense as self-expression needs three areas of freedom. First is a democratic space, a civic space devoid of state harassment and threats of prison, exile or death. This space is for every citizen. In fighting for the integrity of that space, the artist is on the side of all the forces in society that struggle to have their voices heard. That’s why during apartheid most of the leading South African writers, even where they were not card-carrying members of a particular party, still allied with the liberations movements. Sometimes an artist can articulate a vision that’s ahead of the contemporary consciousness. It is the prophetic side to Art.

The second is democratic access to the means of self-expression. You may have the talent, but do you have the means of expressing it? If one is denied pen and paper, or any writing machine, a typewriter or computer, then one is hampered by that denial. That’s why oppressive regimes deny imprisoned writers or workers in ideas access to pen and paper. One of the basic, most fundamental means of individual and communal self realization is language. That’s why the right to language is a human right, like all the other rights, enshrined in the constitution. It’s exercise in different ways communally and individually chosen, is a democratic right. But in most African countries before but more so after independence the majority are denied access to their languages because the state has marginalized them to the point of official invisibility. English, French and Portuguese take the pride of place in the body politic. In some cases there is hostility to African languages. Last year, in my own country Kenya, Parliament voted to ban African languages in public places, and this despite provision in the new constitution to give life to African languages. Even colonial powers never passed such a motion. It happened in the slave plantations of America and the Caribbean where African languages were similarly forbidden. These elected representatives were ready to take a leaf from the slave plantation and violate the constitution to protect English against the invasion of the languages spoken by the people who elected them. Fortunately the President has not signed it. But the languages remain under siege.

And even where there are positive policies, there is no economic, political, cultural and psychological will behind their implementation. All the will and resources are put behind European languages. The African middle class is running from their languages. In the process they perpetrate child abuse on a national scale. For to deny a child, any child, their right to mother tongue, to bring up such a child as a monolingual English speaker in a society where the majority speak African languages, to alienate that child from a public they may be called to serve, is nothing short of child abuse. To have mother tongue, whatever it is, and add other languages to it is empowerment. But to know all the other languages and not one’s own is enslavement. I hope Africa chooses empowerment over enslavement. Don’t turn our children into linguistic slaves, aliens in their own communities. The global citizen is not an abstraction: he or she has roots in all the countries, communities, and languages of the earth.

But good policies are not enough to bring about change in attitudes. Lip service without material service leaves service hanging on the lips. The allocation of resources is what tells the story of support. What African languages need is power sharing with English, French, Afrikaans or any other official languages. It is not too much to ask that demonstration of competence in at least one African language be made a condition for promotion. I don’t see why anybody should be allowed to stand for councils and parliament without showing a certified competence in an African language. Corporations can also help in attaching competence in an African language as an added value to the other conditions for hire and promotion. English, Afrikaans, French newspapers should also lead the way in this, for a reporter who also has one or more languages of the country they serve is surely a much better informed journalist. It should be a national effort The struggle to right the imbalance of power between languages should be national with belief and passion behind it. The education system should reflect that commitment and I don’t see why a knowledge of one or more African languages should not be a requirement at all levels of graduation from primary to colleges. And finally, we have to stop the madness of promoting African writing on condition that participants write in European languages. Can anybody think of giving money to promote French literature on condition that they write it in isiZulu? African languages are equally legitimate as tools for creative imagination and in South Africa, there is the testimony of the great tradition of Rubisana, Mqhayi, Dhlomo, Vilakazi, Mofolo and Mazisi Kunene. In translation, Mofolo’s Chaka, written in Sesotho, made a big impact on the work of such greats as Senghor and other African writers.

The third is the artists’ integrity and loyalty to their imagination. It comes with responsibilities to oneself, striving for the best and highest in one’s art, and to one’s community and the world. We are all connected. Sembene Ousmane, the late Senegalese writer and film maker, once said that art must give voice to those without a voice; legs to those without legs: eyes to those who cannot see. I agree.

Art particularly in its prophetic tradition embodies the conscience of the nation. In that sense Art and the freedom of expression are essential to culture for culture is not the same thing as a particular tradition. Culture reflects a community in motion. Culture is to the community what the flower is to a plant. A flower is very beautiful to behold. But it is the result of the roots, the trunk, the branches and the leaves. But the flower is special because it contains the seeds which are the tomorrow of that plant. A product of a dynamic past, it is pregnant with a tomorrow.

I still like what Mao once said: let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend. So also languages: Let a hundred languages contend and a hundred flowers will bloom.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is most recently the author of Wizard of the Crow and the memoir Dreams in a Time of War. An edited version of this speech appeared in the Sunday Times on 24 June 2012

“The Past is Always Better Than the Present”

Rethinking Eastern African Literary and Intellectual Landscapes is a new book, a collaborative effort between East African academics, writers and thinkers. The book launched at the Goethe Institut in Nairobi on the 3rd of July, 2012.

While introducing the book, Dr. Tom Odhiambo reaffirmed the urgency and need of such endeavours by East African thinkers. He lamented the baleful disregard of arts and humanities by university administrations in Kenya where it frequently occurs that academics are unable to secure funding for their projects ‘because their work is not scientific enough’.

Dr. James Ogude explained how the book was conceptualized; it is an attempt at finding ways to re-energising intellectual scholarships within East Africa.

“We may work with the world, but it is necessary to have our own local interventions,” Ogude said. “A society that relies on foreign voices to tell its own stories is a dying society.”

Ogude recounted the intellectual climate of the 60s. “We have never looked back at that era and captured the intellectual traditions,” he said and illustrated how Ngugi and others led the intellectual revolution. “This book attempts to reassert East Africa as an important site of culture and intellectualism.”

Ogude shared details of his recent meeting with Ngugi. “Ngugi and I reminisced on those days gone. See, back then, we never quite realized the contribution of scholars in the region. And then Ngugi asked me where in Nairobi the book was to launch. He laughed when I told him, said we are still relying on the patronage of former colonial masters. What happened to our own homegrown spaces? Why do we never take the initiative?”

Ogude explained how received theories (from the west) inflected the manner of perception of our own experiences by reversing the hierarchy of our intellectual values. This is what Ogude terms as ‘The African Urgency’, one that needs to be addressed.

“The humanities are the crucible of society. We can produce technocrats, but society needs its thinkers.”

Dr. Godwin Murunga criticised the learning of African Studies as a distinct, monolithic unit. “I do not understand why, in this day and age, a university in Africa would teach African Studies. Have we, all this time, been studying aliens?” he asked. “Why must we depart from history, from literature, from art, and look for Africa in a place called ‘Africa Studies’?”

Murunga spoke of the global politics of education and the bearing of one’s academic affiliations to one’s global visibility (a severe reality that makes African scholars virtually invisible). He also spoke of the pitiful internal dynamics of our own institutions, the astonishing ways in which our universities self-annihilate.

Dr. George Ogola discussed the politics of the exiled African intellectual. He explained that diasporic intellectuals are often dismissed as inauthentic precisely because of their absence, a criticism that ignores the moral and material realities. Intellectual traditions do not follow linear trajectories, and many intellectuals and thinkers are so because of the anxieties of exile.

Ogola explained that the book is important due to its decolonisation of modernities, and due to the fact that the book not only focuses on Kenya or Africa but transcends it.

“This book is both historical and contemporary,” he said. “It redresses concerns of thematic insularities. It questions, for example, not just the patriarchy of European imperialism, but of African nationalism. What is the place of the woman as producer of intelligent output? Whose intelligent traditions are we engaging with, and where is the place of the woman in this?”

After a brief musical interlude during which the gripping Makadem performed, the audience was allowed to field questions. One particularly resonating one came from someone that spoke heatedly of what he termed as ‘positive primitivism’.

“The past is always better than the present,” he said, levelling his criticism against the intellectuals who looked back at the 60s and 70s through rose-tinted spectacles. “The revolution of the 70s meant to bring African voices at the centre of departments, and to put English aside. What then would have been the logical conclusion?”

He explained that in his opinion, African voices are best heard in African languages. In Kenya, there is a larger body of work in Swahili today than there was in English in all of the 60s, 70s and 80s combined.

“Why then do we say that literature has died? Back then, we were unhappy about expressing Kenyan voices in foreign languages. What we hear now is a dominant story, one expressed in English. Does it mean that if it a voice does not speak in English then it does not exist?”

In answer to this, Ogude expressed satisfaction at the growing body of work in Swahili and other local languages. He warned, however, that it will come to naught should this work be ignored by intellectuals.

“We need to engage with these works,” he said. He went on to address the criticism against such ‘positive primitivism’ with regards to the nostalgia of the 60s and 70s:

“Makerere, the University of Nairobi were functional institutions back then. We need not sweep realities under carpets. We must face ourselves, demand answers from ourselves. It is inevitable that intellectualism will plummet if student bodies increase exponentially without concomitant increase in academic resources. What we are seeing right now is a phenomenon where our students do not go through university, but university goes through our students!”

—Claudette Oduor

Iheoma Nwachukwu: On PH World Book Capital Bid

The Adventure of Port Harcourt’s Bid to Become World Book Capital City

By Iheoma Nwachukwu

Peter Pan and Port Harcourt have one thing in common—Lewis Harcourt, for whom the city is named. In 1912, the year the city was christened, Lewis Harcourt, serving in H.H. Asquith’s cabinet, authorized the placement of the Peter Pan statue in London’s Kensington Gardens. He might as well have authorized the placement of the statue in Port Harcourt (or the placement of the Muse in Port Harcourt), because the qualities of adventure, diversity, and eternal youth that Peter Pan personalizes, that the Peter Pan story embodies, are attributes that have drawn migrants, and writers, to Port Harcourt for all of its hundred years.

Peter Pan

Port Harcourt’s bid to become the 2014 World Book Capital City then comes as little surprise for a city that shares a historical bond with probably the most popular, most exciting, most adapted character in children’s literature.

The World Book Capital City title, which began in 2001, is presented by UNESCO to a city with the best programme that promotes books and reading, and shows the most convincing dedication of all players in its local book industry.

The title runs from April 23 (UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day) to April 22 of the following year. Madrid won the incipient award; Yerevan in Armenia currently holds the 2012 award. Oxford (United Kingdom) and Pula (Croatia) are just two of the other cities Port Harcourt has to defeat for the 2014 title.

Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state and Nigeria’s oil capital, seems the obvious choice for the 2014 title given the quality, variety, broad international scope, and commitment of all actors in the local book industry, evident in its World Book Capital City programme. First, the theme for the bid—Books: Window to Our World of Possibilities—evokes a potent image of the book, knowledge, as the lens through which we interpret and influence our world.

The Port Harcourt World Book Capital City programme proposes to begin with the performance of an inspiring theme song, performed by a popular Nigerian artiste, and written by a lucky youth whose work is chosen from a nationwide pool. Another slated activity is a national symposium which will assemble stakeholders in the book chain industry to discuss the future literacy and literary culture in Nigeria, and the importance of literature in unlocking the potentials of the country’s youth. The Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, an avid reader who holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in English Literature, will lead this discussion.

Nigeria’s President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will also be invited to read an excerpt from a classic Nigerian novel to children. The President recently led a national reading campaign named ‘Bring Back the Book,’ and his involvement will surely encourage more young people to read and write. Also expected to read to children at chosen locations across the city of Port Harcourt are authors, poets, and celebrities from film, music, sports, as well as the business communities.

Perhaps the greatest boon to Port-Harcourt’s bid is the Garden City Literary Festival, held yearly in Port Harcourt since 2008 by the Rainbow Book Club. The festival, which has seen attendance by writers like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiong’O, and Ama Ata Aidoo, holds author readings, fiction and poetry workshops for emerging writers, writing, drama and arts workshops for children, book fairs, and many other activities over a five-day period. Thus, the World Book Capital City programme will gain from the experience of the administrators of the literary festival, since the Rainbow Book Club, which runs the festival, manages Port Harcourt’s bid, too.

Nigeria’s literary heritage is not in doubt; it has gifted the world legendary writers like Wole Soyinka, the first person of African descent to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, the most widely read book by an African; and other world-renowned writers such as Ken Saro-Wiwa, J. P. Clarke, Ben Okri, and Elechi Amadi.

Port Harcourt’s win will not only cast a fresh eye on Nigeria’s past achievements, but will also catalyze the intense literary scene (many successful young Nigerian writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who runs a yearly workshop, and Port Harcourt-born Igoni Barrett, already inspire lots of Nigerians) and give Nigerian literature a helpful jab in the arm. In its own right, Port Harcourt has a rich literary pedigree, and has provided roof and Muse to writers for decades. For example, it is home to numerous authors, including the iconic novelist Elechi Amadi, the brilliant poet Gabriel Okara, as well as celebrated historians like Robin Horton and E. J. Alagoa. Also, Old Port Harcourt Town was a vibrant cultural centre in the 1970s, and provided entertainment and education through plays directed by the likes of Comish Ekiye with a distinguished cast that included actors Doye Agama, Barbara Soki, and Aso Douglas. Some of the famous early educational institutes in Nigeria such as the Okrika Grammar School, and the Archdeacon Crowther Memorial Girls Secondary School, also actively promoted literature in Port Harcourt.

The promotion of literature among the youth is one obvious impact of any literary programme, especially one overseen by UNESCO. The Garden City literary Festival is proof of this kind of impact. Dana Donubari, who attended one of the festival workshops in 2009, was inspired to publish a collection of poems titled Tears for Ogoni. Port Harcourt, which until recently experienced violent activity from militant youth demanding a fair share of Nigeria’s oil wealth, has the potential to change the lives of even more youth as a World Book Capital City—perhaps reach an ex-militant and inspire this youth to tell his story.

There is so much potential here, and UNESCO must know this, too. Port Harcourt looks ready to become World Book Capital City. This would be something of an adventure, a win that has potential to draw the adventure-boy himself, Peter Pan, to the fascinating coastal city of Port Harcourt. As well as draw the gaze of the entire globe.

The world can hardly wait.

Iheoma Nwachukwu is a creative writer. He has received fellowships from the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists, Bard College, New York, and the Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas, Austin.

Sylva Ifedigbo: On the PH World Book Capital Bid

Books Are a Window to Our World of Possibilities: A Look at the Port Harcourt Bid for UNESCO World Book Capital City

By Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

Home to renowned writers such as Elechi Amadi, Gabriel Okara and Kaine Agary, Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil-rich city and capital of Rivers State, has announced its bid to be named the UNESCO World Book Capital City in 2014, a bid which will see it emerge as the first city in Sub-Saharan Africa to hold the enviable title.

Every year UNESCO convenes delegates from the International Publishers Association, the International Booksellers Federation, and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions to grant the title of UNESCO World Book Capital to one city. This city holds the title for one designated year, from 23 April (UNESCO World Book Day) until 22 April of the following year and undertakes to organize a series of enriching, educative and entertaining events around books, literature and reading. The title of World Book Capital is given to the city with the best programme dedicated to books and reading.

The Port Harcourt bid for this title—which is spearheaded by the Rainbow Book Club, organizers of the annual Garden City Literary Festival, in conjunction with the Rivers State Government—sees Port Harcourt pitched against cities like Oxford in the United Kingdom, Vilnius in Lithuania, Pula in Croatia and Yaoundé in Cameroon, the only other city from Africa. The title, which was launched in 2001 and is currently held by Ljubljana in Slovenia, has been held at various times in the past by Madrid, Alexandria, New Delhi, Montreal, Antwerp, Turin, Bogotá, Amsterdam, and Beirut, with Bangkok already announced as the chosen city for 2013.

The bid by Port Harcourt comes at a time when Nigeria is experiencing a literary revival with the rise of writers such as Sefi Atta (Winner of the Noma Award, 2009), Kaine Agary (NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, 2008) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (winner of the Orange Prize, 2007), Commonwealth Book Prize winners like Helon Habila, Uwem Akpan and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Caine Prize Winner E.C Osondu, and a host of others who are blazing the trail globally.

Closely related to this is the increased focus on literary activities in the country. This commendable trend is highlighted by programmes such as the President Jonathan-initiated “Bring Back the Book” project, the Farafina annual creative writing workshop, and the Garden City Literary Festival. Also worthy of note is the institution of competitive literary prizes and awards such as the Caine Prize, the Wole Soyinka Prize, and the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature which at $100,000 stands as the most lucrative literary award in Africa.

The city of Port Harcourt, significant for its mix of cultures and its status as the hub of the oil-rich Niger Delta region, has come of age as a haven of culture and is fast making a name for itself as a major player on the global literary stage. Port Harcourt is also home to the annual Garden City Literary Festival. This festival is organized by Rainbow Book Club and has been described by Thisday Newspapers as “arguably the biggest event of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.” The festival in its five years of existence has attracted such literary heavyweights as Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ghana’s Ama Ata Aidoo and Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, J. P. Clark and Sefi Atta. Other guests of honour at the GCLF include dignitaries such as former Commonwealth Secretary-General Chief Emeka Anyaoku, as well as revered civil liberties activist Reverend Jesse Jackson.

It is to such earnest efforts in promoting literature that the award of the UNESCO World Book Capital title is sure to make the most impact. The status will contribute in no small way to maintaining the focus on literary activities in Nigeria. Furthermore, should its bid be successful, Port Harcourt will no doubt have a golden opportunity to build on the legacy of its literary history and culture to expand its role and influence on the continent.

One big plus for Port Harcourt’s bid is the endorsement and spirited support it enjoys from the government of Rivers State led by Rt. Honourable Rotimi Amaechi. The governor, a literary enthusiast, has committed to supporting a dynamic team composed of literary figures and leaders from the private sector, coordinated by the Rainbow Book Club, to drive the activities for the 2014 bid. This team includes such names as Noble Pepple, Ndidi Nwuneli, Anthony Epelle and A. Igoni Barrett, and it is chaired by Koko Kalango, founder of the Rainbow Book Club and Director of the Garden City Literary Festival.

As part of the bid process this committee has chosen the theme of “Books: Window to our World of Possibilities” to drive the 2014 activities in Port Harcourt. A rich itinerary of events is also planned to run through the World Book Capital year in Port Harcourt, including the opening of the multi-purpose Garden City Library Complex, drama performances, celebrity book reading sessions, a national symposium, and a host of other projects.

It is interesting to note that the 2014 bid by Port Harcourt coincides with the centenary celebration of Nigeria as we mark 100 years since the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates by the British colonial government. It will be a befitting gift for the entire country if Port Harcourt were to become the World Book Capital at this time. Besides being a valid acknowledgement of the country’s rich literary heritage, it will also be a worthy template for emulation by other African countries in the promotion of reading, literature and the arts in general.

It is exciting that Port Harcourt is in contention for the World Book Capital and one must applaud the vision and forthrightness of the Rainbow Book Club and the Rivers State Government. As a major city in the literature-rich country of Nigeria, Port Harcourt will present unique opportunities for enhancing the idea of the “book” in the 21st century and its role as a window to a world of opportunities. This is one commendable effort that surely needs all the support it can get.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo is a creative writer and communications practitioner who lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

The African Writers Series is Seeking Manuscripts

The African Writers Series is a wide-ranging series offering stories, poetry, biographical writings and essays from across Africa. It includes work from nearly 40 writers from 19 different countries, including classic titles from renowned African authors such as Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Go here if you would like to submit your work to the series.

Asia In My Life: an essay by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Via Books Live:

Acclaimed Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who will be speaking at the Cape Town Book Fair in June, writes about the importance of India in his life and in the anti-colonial struggle throughout Africa. He stresses the importance of interaction between Africa, India and South America in ending the “Age of the European Empire” in this feature for Pambazuka News.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was a guest author at GCLF 2009.