The Great African Literary Controversy

Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been at the center of literary controversy

A few years into his career,novelist James Ngugi shocked the literary world when he stopped writing in English  to write in his Kikuyu Vernacular.He was later to follow this radical shift with changing his name to Ngugi wa Thiong'o ,scrapping the English part of his African identity.

In many of his books that followed Ngugi fought injustices and pointed out mistakes  in  his mother-tongue ,plunging into what appears to be an  endless  controversy .He has also in his  career written numerous articles and essays  advocating for what he calls "freeing culture from Ethnocentrism" .

According to Ngugi,who recently published an installment of his lengthy childhood memoir,Dreams in a Time of War,,language and culture are part of the struggles aimed at moving the center from Europe ,and decolonizing  of the minds of the people.

"The tradition of Africans writing  in European language particularly those of the former  colonizers is clearly a product of of the fatal encounter between Africa and Europe ,"argues Ngugi in  his collection  of essays  entitled Moving the Center

In the book  Ngugi discusses in detail  the motivation behind his ardent advocacy  on language suggesting that language is entrenched in   a peoples culture.


The globally renowned scholar's pressing for  use  of people's own languages in  literature   has over time drawn criticism with some literary analysts and fellow scholars  on record saying 'Ngugi is fighting a losing battle".

Ngugi  adds that   literature in African languages suffers from a lack of strong tradition.

"Everyone  in the world has a language,either the language of his  or her parents or one adopted at birth at a later  stage in life,"writes Ngugi.He continues:"So when  we consider  English  as  a language  for the world,we are all drawing  from the languages and cultures in which we are rooted."

Ngugi's position on the matter of language has attracted interesting criticisms among them respected  Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe,and the two have had a long fight over the language in which African literature should be written.

In 1990   Achebe lashed at Ngugi  in an essay ,saying 'English is the most viable language  to represent African hopes and fears in literature.The essay ,republished in Achebe's latest book,The Education of a British-Protected Child, serves to re-affirm Achebe's unwavering stance .

As Ngugi describes Achebe's argument as 'fatalistic logic'  in Decolonizing the Mind,Achebe ,in 2009,described  Ngugi's argument as  comprising of 'fatal snags of the single-minded"


While Ngugi adfvocates for local languages only,Achebe supports  the use of English  and local languages as well.
 "The difference between  Ngugi  and myself on the issue of indigenous or European  languages is that while  Ngugi now believes it is either/or,I have always thought it was both,"Achebe said.

As the debate continues to rage,perhaps another notable difference  the two could be that while  Ngugi seems  angry and serious  in his essays,Achebe adopts irony and humor coupled with sayings and proverbs to drive his message home.

Also,Achebe's Politics and  Politicians of Language  could be a mischivous rejoinder to Ngugi's The Politics Of Language in African Literature ,a subtitle in Decolonising the Mind.

Hero Who Reclaimed Africa's Literary Desert

When Chinua  Achebe published his first novel,it suddenly occurred to the world that Africa could express herself through literature ,and in her own voice and terms.

An enduring masterpiece,Things Fall Apart ,published in 1958,received and continues to receive global acclaim


Chinua Achebe has confessed that his greatest motivation to become a writer was  the indignation he felt at  the skewed depictions of Africa by some English writers such as Joseph Conrad and Karen Blixen.


"The story of my people was not going to be like one of those written  by adventurous Europeans in which the white man was always the winner" Achebe said of  Things Fall Apart.

Before 1958 ,among others ,Joseph Conrad and Karebn Blixen  had painted Africa as  utterly exotic in what has come to be seen as  a deliberate attempt to attract European tourists and settlers to the continent,and raise financial prospects in return.

But Things Fall Apart ,which has since sold over  nine million copies worldwide  adequately told off Conrad's The Heart Of Darkness, and Blixen's Out Of Africa.

In their books both Conrad and Blixen  draw Africa as a continent without order with Blixen at one point likening her cook to her dog.

Educated in Nigeria and Britain,,Achebe read Conrad's The Heart Of Darkness for his degree,and was henceforth determined to counter the falsehoods .He would later--in an article --accuse Joseph Conrad of racism.
"The novelist  is a teacher  who needs to re-educate   people"Achebe said  in an article.

Born in 1930 among the Ibo People ,Achebe ,who also writes poetry,is probably Africa's most read and discussed writer.

During the Biafran War  that broke  out in 1966 with the abortive attempt to establish  an independent Republic of Biafra by Eastern  Ibos,Achebe put paid to  to the writing of his  sixth book,The Anthills Of  the Savanna to  publicize  his people's tribulations through poetry.His efforts culminated in  Beware Soul Brother ,a collection of poems  on the Ibo experience  in the three-year war.


The book apeared in the United States  of America as Chrismas in Biafra and Other Poems..When he published   A Man Of the People in 1966,he  was forced to flee to exile  as the novel  implicated him in a coup it preceded due to its prophetic ending.

Achebe escaped arrest narrowly and fled to The United States Of America

While in America ,he became editor of Okike,an influential  African literary magazine .He also became professor of English at Massachusetts at Amherst .

Achebe's other books include:Arrow Of God (Which he says is the novel he is most likely to be caught sitting to read again),and Chike  and The River ,which Achebe describes as 'a novel for boys'.

In 2001,Achebe published Home and Exile ,and most recently in 2010 ,The Education of a British-protected Child,in which he tells his own story growing under colonialism .

On his return to Nigeria in from exile in 1976,Achebe became professor of English at the university of Nigeria .And in 1990,he was involved in a fatal road accident  that would see him on a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

But although the tragic  accident  rendered his legs useless,Achebe continues to shake the literary world ,churning out ideas on social life politics and language.He has received dozens of accolades in international circles.

For this man ,it can be said,the center continues to hold.