Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

'''Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o** (; born **James Ngugi'''; 5 January 1938 &ndash; 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. 
*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
*University of Edinburgh, Honorary doctorate (D.Litt.), 2019
*Honorary PhD, Roskilde, Denmark

## Publications
### 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)

### Other non-fiction
* *Education for a National Culture* (1981)
* *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, 

## References
## 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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;42–47. 
*James Currey, "Publishing Ngũgĩ", *Leeds African Studies Bulletin* 68 (May 2006), pp.&nbsp;26–54.
*Carey Baraka, "Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: three days with a giant of African literature", *The Guardian*, 13 June 2023.