A Huge Cotton Tree of African and Global Literature is Gone. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, A literary giant, Panafricanist and a decolonial scholar who helped shaped narratives of Africa, contextualizing the impacts of colonialism, the centrality of African culture, languages and the need for decolonisation. My deep and heartfelt condolences to his family. Rest in Power Legend.

Here is a few of my favorite Ngugi Wa Thiong’o Quotes:

  1. “Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture” – Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo

  2. “The bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation”– Ngugi Wa Thiongo

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  3. “The present predicaments of Africa are often not a matter of personal choice: they arise from a historical situation. Their solutions are not so much a matter of personal decision as that of a fundamental social transformation of the structures of our societies starting with a real break with imperialism and its internal ruling allies. Imperialism and its comprador alliances in Africa can never develop the continent.” —- Ngugi Wa Thiongo

  4. “The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission. Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices.”- Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

  5. “If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe … then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.’” -Ngugi wa Thiong’o