His daughter, Wanjiku wa Ngugi, confirmed his death in a brief yet moving Facebook post, calling not only for mourning but for celebration.
'He lived a full life, fought a good fight… let's celebrate his life and his work," Wanjiku's post read in part.
Ngũgĩ's daughter signed off her farewell with the Gikuyu phrase: 'Rîa ratha na rîa thŭa. Tŭrî aira!', loosely translated as 'At sunrise and sunset, we are witnesses.' It was a poetic homage to a man whose words lit up dark times and whose legacy will continue to illuminate generations to come.
To celebrate Ngũgĩ's life is to honour a man who challenged the very foundations of postcolonial thought and reimagined Africa's literary identity on its own terms.
A pioneer of decolonisation in literature, Ngũgĩ used words as both sword and shield, fighting cultural erasure, linguistic imperialism, and political oppression. He wasn't just a novelist. He was a defiant wordsmith, a pan-African thinker, and above all, a storyteller who rewrote the African narrative from the inside out.
Born James Ngugi in 1938 in colonial Kenya, Ngũgĩ came of age during the Mau Mau uprising and the brutal suppression that followed. These formative experiences would later shape the raw, politically charged texture of his fiction. His first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), was the first novel in English published by an East African. It was undeniably a historic achievement at the time.
Yet, even as he wrote in the language of the coloniser, Ngũgĩ's stories always sought to humanise and dignify Africans. From The River Between (1965) to A Grain of Wheat (1967), he painted a nuanced portrait of a people grappling with the wounds of colonialism and the promises, often broken, of independence.
In the mid-1970s, Ngũgĩ underwent a dramatic ideological transformation. He denounced English as a medium for African literature, arguing that to truly decolonise the African mind, one must write in African languages. In Decolonising the Mind (1986), he described colonial languages as vehicles of alienation and control.
'Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture,' he wrote.
This marked the start of a literary rebellion. Ngũgĩ adopted his birth name, abandoned English in favour of Gikuyu, and challenged other African writers to do the same. His critics called it idealistic. His supporters called it revolutionary. In truth, it was both, and it would shape African literary debates for decades.
Jailed for his words
In 1977, Ngũgĩ and fellow writer Ngũgĩ wa Mirii staged a Gikuyu-language play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), in a rural village. The play transcended mere art; it was an act of political insurgency. It exposed class divisions, land grabbing, and corruption in post-independence Kenya.
The state responded swiftly. Ngũgĩ was arrested and detained without trial in a maximum-security prison. Yet even behind bars, his pen did not rest. On toilet paper, he wrote Devil on the Cross (1980), the first modern novel written in Gikuyu. It was a profound act of cultural defiance, proving that indigenous languages could bear the weight of complex, modern narratives.
Like Petals of Blood, published in 1977, the novel deepened his critique of post-independence disillusionment and foregrounded the lives of Kenya's working class, particularly how the new elite perpetuated the exploitation of the masses.
Exile and intellectual resistance
After his release, Ngũgĩ faced threats, surveillance, and continued censorship. In 1982, following an attempted coup in Kenya, he went into self-imposed exile, first to Britain, then to the United States, where he taught at universities including Yale and UC Irvine. Though separated from home, he remained deeply connected to the African struggle.
In exile, Ngũgĩ published prolifically. Novels like Matigari (1987) and memoirs like Detained (1981) and Dreams in a Time of War (2010) kept his story, and Kenya's, alive for a global audience. His essays, especially Moving the Centre and Something Torn and New, advocated for recentring African languages, thought systems, and worldviews in both education and culture.
A visionary for African cultural sovereignty
For Ngũgĩ, literature was never an elite affair. It was a public instrument, a communal mirror. He championed the belief that Africa could never be truly free without linguistic and cultural liberation. His call was not just for African writers to return to African languages, but for education systems to be restructured around them.
He fiercely criticised what he saw as the Western stranglehold on African intellectual life, challenging the dominance of Euro-American publishing industries, curricula, and academic gatekeeping.
Ngũgĩ's legacy is carved not just into the pages of books, but into the consciousness of a continent. His life asks uncomfortable questions: What is freedom without cultural self-determination? What is education if it divorces children from their heritage? What is literature if it only mirrors the worldview of the oppressor?
He proved that African languages were not relics. They were alive, powerful, and capable of shaping modern identities.
Across generations, young African writers, linguists, and educators continue to engage with Ngũgĩ's ideas. His novels are taught in schools and universities around the world. His speeches and essays continue to ignite debates on decolonisation, cultural preservation, and the politics of language.
Even in death, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o remains a guide. His is a voice reminding Africa to tell its own story, in its own words.
He may be gone, but his story and his call to decolonise the mind will continue to echo across Africa and the world.
Wycliffe Nyamasege
