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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ngugi's Conversion: Writing and the politics of language
Author:Gikandi, S.ISNI
Year:1992
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:23
Issue:1
Pages:131-144
Language:English
Geographic term:Kenya
Subjects:ethnic literature
literature
About person:Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1938-)ISNI
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3819955
Abstract:Ngugi wa Thiong'o's decision to write in his native Gikuyu was explained by him in a talk 'Return to the roots; national languages as the basis of a Kenyan national literature and culture' (1979) and, more elaborately, in his book 'Decolonising the mind' (1986). This essay argues that the most important issues raised in Ngugi's discourse on language do not lie in the manifest rhetoric that it promotes so persuasively. On the contrary, they reside in the splits, the ellipses, and the gaps that it opens up. They reside as well in the contradictory interpretations that result when Ngugi attempts to transcend his own diachronic distinction between a genuine African literature in African languages and an Afro-European literary practice imprisoned in its colonial language. In regard to the institution of literature in Africa, the value of this discourse does not depend upon the language Ngugi has chosen to use, but upon the philosophical and ideological claims he makes for the nativist enterprise as a liberating praxis. Bibliogr.
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