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.