Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

**Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o** (; born **James Ngugi**; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic. He was called "East Africa's leading novelist".

## Career

Ngũgĩ started writing in English, but later wrote mostly in Gikuyu. He wrote many novels, plays, short stories, and essays. His work were many different things. He wrote literary and social criticism, to children's books. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal _Mũtĩiri_. His short story _The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright_ has been translated into 100 languages.

Ngũgĩ was a professor at the University of California, Irvine, Northwestern University, Yale University, and New York University. Ngũgĩ has often said to be a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He won the 2001 International Nonino Prize in Italy. In 2016, he won the Park Kyong-ni Prize. His children are also popular authors, including Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.

In March 2021, his work, _The Perfect Nine_, became the first work written in an indigenous African language to be longlisted for the International Booker Prize, with Ngũgĩ becoming the first nominee as both the author and translator of the book.

## Death

Ngũgĩ died on 28 May 2025 at a hospital in Buford, Georgia at the age of 87. At the time of his death, he was being treated for kidney failure.

## Awards and honours

- 1963: The East Africa Novel Prize
- 1964: Unesco First Prize for his debut novel _Weep Not Child_, at the first World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal
- 1973: The Lotus Prize for Literature, at Alma Atta, Khazakhistan
- 1992 (6 April): The Paul Robeson award for Artistic Excellence, Political Conscience and Integrity, in Philadelphia, U.S.
- 1992 (October): honoured by New York University by being appointed to the Erich Maria Remarque Professorship in Languages to "acknowledge extraordinary scholarly achievement, strong leadership in the University Community and the Profession and significant contribution to our educational mission."
- 1993: The Zora Neale Hurston-Paul Robeson Award, for artistic and scholarly achievement, awarded by the National Council for Black Studies, in Accra, Ghana
- 1994 (October): The Gwendolyn Brooks Center Contributors Award for significant contribution to The Black Literary Arts
- 1996: The Fonlon-Nichols Prize, New York, for Artistic Excellence and Human Rights
- 2001: Nonino International Prize for Literature
- 2002: Zimbabwe International Book Fair, "The Best Twelve African Books of the Twentieth Century."
- 2002 (July): Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UCI.
- 2002 (October): Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Cabinet Awarded by the International Scientific Committee of the Pio Manzu Centre, Rimini, Italy.
- 2003 (May): Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
- 2003 (December): Honorary Life Membership of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA),
- 2004 (23–28 February): Visiting Fellow, Humanities Research Centre.
- 2006: _Wizard of the Crow_ is No. 3 on _Time_ magazine's Top 10 Books of the Year (European edition)
- 2006: _Wizard of the Crow_ is one of _The Economist_s Best Books of the Year
- 2006: _Wizard of the Crow_ is one of _Salon.com_s picks for Best Fiction of the year
- 2006: _Wizard of the Crow_ is the winner of the Winter 2007 Read This! for Lit-Blog Co-Op; The Literary Saloon
- 2006: _Wizard of the Crow_ highlighted in the _Washington Post’s_ Favorite Books of the year.
- 2007: _Wizard of the Crow_ - longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
- 2007: _Wizard of the Crow_ - finalist on the NAACP Image Award for Fiction
- 2007: _Wizard of the Crow_ - shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book – Africa.
- 2007: _Wizard of the Crow -_ Gold medal winner in Fiction for the 2007 California Book Awards
- 2007: _Wizard of the Crow -_ 2007 Aspen Prize for Literature
- 2007: _Wizard of the Crow –_ finalist for the 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Black Literature
- 2008: _Wizard of the Crow_ nominated for the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Award
- 2008 (2 April): Order of the Elder of Burning Spear (Kenya Medal – conferred by Kenya’s Ambassador to the United States in Los Angeles).
- 2008: (October, 24) Grinzane for Africa Award
- 2008: Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
- 2009: Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize
- 2011: (17 February) Africa Channel Literary Achievement Award.
- 2012: National Book Critics Circle Award (finalist Autobiography) for _In the House of the Interpreter_
- 2012 (31 March): W.E.B. Du Bois Award, National Black Writer’s Conference, New York.
- 2013 (October): UCI Medal
- 2014: Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 2014: Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award for Philosophical Literature
- 2014 (16 November): Honoured at Archipelago Books' 10th anniversary gala in New York.
- 2016: Park Kyong-ni Prize
- 2016 (14 December): Sanaa Theatre Awards/Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of excellence in Kenyan Theatre, Kenya National Theatre.
- 2017: _Los Angeles Review of Books_/UCR Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2018: _Grand Prix des mécènes_ of the GPLA 2018, for his entire body of work.
- 2019: Premi Internacional de Catalunya Award for his Courageous work and Advocacy for African languages
- 2021: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for _The Perfect Nine_
- 2021: Elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer
- 2022: PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature

### Honorary degrees

- Albright College, Doctor of Humane Letters _honoris causa_, 1994
- University of Leeds, Honorary doctorate of Letters (LittD), 2004
- Walter Sisulu University (formerly U. Transkei), South Africa, Honorary Degree, Doctor of Literature and Philosophy, July 2004.
- California State University, Dominguez Hills, Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, May 2005.
- Dillard University, New Orleans, Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, May 2005.
- University of Auckland, Honorary doctorate of Letters (LittD), 2005
- New York University, Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters, 15 May 2008
- University of Dar es Salaam, Honorary doctorate in Literature, 2013
- University of Bayreuth, Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h.c.), 2014
- KCA University, Kenya, Honorary Doctorate degree of Human Letters (honoris causa) in Education, 27 November 2016
- Yale University, Honorary doctorate (D.Litt. h.c.), 2017
- University of Edinburgh, Honorary doctorate (D.Litt.), 2019
- Honorary PhD, Roskilde, Denmark

### Novels

- _Weep Not, Child_ (1964),
- _The River Between_ (1965),
- _A Grain of Wheat_ (1967, 1992),
- _Petals of Blood_ (1977),
- _Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini_ (_Devil on the Cross_, 1980)
- _Matigari ma Njiruungi_, 1986 (_Matigari_, translated into English by Wangui wa Goro, 1989),
- _Mũrogi wa Kagogo_ (_Wizard of the Crow_, 2006),
- _The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi_ (2020)

### Short-story collections

- _A Meeting in the Dark_ (1974)
- _Secret Lives, and Other Stories_ (1976, 1992),
- _Minutes of Glory and Other Stories_ (2019)

### Plays

- _The Black Hermit_ (1963)
- _This Time Tomorrow_ (three plays, including the title play, "The Rebels", "The Wound in the Heart" and "This Time Tomorrow") (1970)
- _Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture, and Politics_ (1972),
- _The Trial of Dedan Kimathi_ (1976), , African Publishing Group,  (with Micere Githae Mugo and Njaka)
- _Ngaahika Ndeenda: Ithaako ria ngerekano (I Will Marry When I Want)_ (1977, 1982) (with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii)

### Memoirs

- _Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary_ (1981)
- _Dreams in a Time of War: a Childhood Memoir_ (2010),
- _In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir_ (2012),
- _Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Memoir of a Writer's Awakening_ (2016),
- _Wrestling with the devil: A Prison Memoir_ (2018)

### Other non-fiction

- _Education for a National Culture_ (1981)
- _Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya_ (1983)
- _Mother, Sing For Me_ (1986)
- _Writing against Neo-Colonialism_ (1986)
- _Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature_ (1986),
- _Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms_ (1993),
- _Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: The Performance of Literature and Power in Post-Colonial Africa_ (The Clarendon Lectures in English Literature 1996), Oxford University Press, 1998,
- _Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance_ (2009),
- _Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing_ (2012),  Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing on JSTOR
- _Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe_ (2016),
- The Language of Languages (2023), ISBN 978-0183090979

### Children's books

- _Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus_ (translated by Wangui wa Goro) (_Njamba Nene na Mbaathi i Mathagu_, 1986)
- _Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief_ (translated by Wangui wa Goro) (_Njamba Nene na Chibu King'ang'i_, 1988)
- _Njamba Nene's Pistol_ (_Bathitoora ya Njamba Nene_, 1990),
- _The Upright Revolution, Or Why Humans Walk Upright_, Seagull Press, 2019,

## Further reading

- Toh, Zorobi Philippe. “Linguistic Mystifications in Discourse: Case of Proverbs in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Matigari”. _Imaginaire et représentations socioculturelles dans les proverbes africains_, edited by Lèfara Silué and Paul Samsia, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2020, pp. 63–71.
- Wise, Christopher. 1997. "Resurrecting the Devil: Notes on Ngũgĩ's Theory of the Oral-Aural African Novel." _Research in African Literatures_ 28.1:134–140.

## Other websites

- Leonard Lopate, "Writing in Exile", 12 September 2006. Interview with Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo on The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, New York public radio, following publication of _Wizard of the Crow_.
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o – An Overview
- Ngugi wa Thiong'o biography and booklist
- The Language of Scholarship in Africa, 2012 lecture by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, published in Leeds _African Studies Bulletin_ 74 (December 2012), pp. 42–47.
- James Currey, "Publishing Ngũgĩ", _Leeds African Studies Bulletin_ 68 (May 2006), pp. 26–54.
- Carey Baraka, "Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: three days with a giant of African literature", _The Guardian_, 13 June 2023.

## Infobox (writer)

- **image**: Ngugi wa Thiong'o - Festivaletteratura 2012.JPG
- **caption**: Thiong'o in 2012
- **birth name**: James Ngugi
- **birth place**: Kamiriithu, Kenya Colony (present-day Kiambu County, Kenya)
- **death place**: Buford, Georgia, United States, U.S.
- **occupation**: Writer
- **language**: English, Kiswahili, Kikuyu language, Kikuyu
- **education**: Makerere University (Bachelor of Arts, BA)
University of Leeds
- **spouse**: Njeeri
- **children**: Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, Mũkoma, Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ, Wanjiku and others
- **notableworks**: _Weep Not, Child_ (1964); _The River Between_ (1965); _A Grain of Wheat_ (1967); _Petals of Blood_ (1977); _Matigari ma Njiruungi_ (1986); _Mũrogi wa Kagogo_ (_Wizard of the Crow_, 2006)