Prof Ngugi this week received the prestigious PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.
The prolific author recalled that upon returning to England, he resolved to write his works in Gikuyu.
The seed that would eventually grow into the mugumo (fig) tree that Ngugi wa Thiong’o crusade for African languages would seem to have accidentally dropped into the soil in 1966 somewhere in New York, the renowned author and champion of “African Voices” revealed on Monday this week.
In his acceptance speech at the PEN/NABOKOVE Award ceremony, Ngugi said that the journey back to his native language began at a writers conference in 1966 when a panelist made a snide remark about Bantu languages.
