SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Ngugi wa Thiong'o went to jail for writing a play in his mother tongue, Gikuyu. During his year in prison, he wrote his first novel on toilet paper. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenya's celebrated novelist and playwright, died on Wednesday at the age of 87. We were fortunate to speak with Mr. Ngugi back in 2020. His book, "The Perfect Nine," had just been published in English, and he told us the time in prison had changed him as a writer.
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NGUGI WA THIONG'O: How come that a post-colonial African government has put me in prison for writing in an African language? So why now? And that question is what set in motion my thinking about an equal and unequal relationship of power between languages. That thinking made me say no. From now onwards, I'll be writing in my mother tongue, and that's how I came to write my first novel in the Gikuyu language called "Devil On The Cross." I wrote it on the only paper available to me, which was toilet paper.
SIMON: Threats on his life forced Ngugi to spend much of his life in exile. He taught comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, for many years, but he continued to write in his mother tongue and then translated his works into English. He believed that only works written in an Indigenous language could truly be called African. For many years, Ngugi's name came up as a favorite to win the Nobel Prize for literature. He told us about the night reporters were at his house at 3 a.m., waiting outside for the call from Sweden.
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WA THIONG'O: So when the news came, my wife had to let them in and really consoled them because they were more depressed than we were (laughter). But my wife made them coffee. That was actually quite amusing. Yeah.
SIMON: Ngugi never did win the Nobel Prize, but he achieved something equally important.
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WA THIONG'O: I really appreciate what I call the Nobel of the heart. Someone reads my book, and they come and tell me, look, your book impacted me in this and that manner. The beauty about the Nobel of the heart is it's very democratic. It's available to every writer.
SIMON: Poet, playwright and novelist in Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and winner of the Nobel Prize of the heart. He spoke with us back in 2020.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MELANCOLIA'S "FAHRTWIND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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