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School of Welsh

5 June 2007: ‘The most renowned African novelist’ visits the School of Welsh

Llun o Ngugi wa Thiong'oOn Tuesday, 5 June Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan author and scholar who has been described as ‘the most renowned African novelist’ visited the School of Welsh. He gave a talk on his life and work, his upbringing in Kenya and the dominance of the British Empire over its culture. In the post-colonial Kenya of the 1970s Ngugi was imprisoned for his opposition to the Moi dictatorship, and his prison diary was later published.

An exile from Kenya since the early 1980s, he is currently Professor of Literature at the University of California, Irvine, and his work in post-colonial theory, in volumes such as Decolonising the Mind, has been substantial and highly influential.

Llun o Ngugi wa Thiong' o gyda staff Ysgol y GymraegIt was certainly interesting for his Welsh audience to listen to his discussion on the relationship between language and identity, and in particular the reasons behind his own decision to cease writing in English and to revert to his native Gikuyu instead. His interest in the Welsh language and its history was evident from the start, and he referred to techniques used in the Kenya of his childhood to promote English in schools which resembled the ‘Welsh Not’ formerly used in Wales.

Llun o Ngugi wa Thiong'o yn llofnodi ei lyfr Wizard of the CrowHe also stressed the importance of translation, and of establishing a ‘network-like’, rather than a ‘hierarchical’, relationship between languages. Ngugi ended his presentation with a reading from the English translation of his latest novel, Wizard of the Crow, a hefty 750-page portrayal - at once bitingly satirical and extremely funny - of a post-colonial African country and its grotesque dictator.

To see more pictures of Ngugi wa Thiong'o's visit, click here