Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Paperback)

Many of the ideas are familiar from Ngugi's earlier critical books, and earlier lectures, elsewhere. But the material here has a new context and the ideas a new focus. This leading African writer presents the arguments for using African language and forms after successfully using an African language himself. - ... after 25 years of independence, there is beginning to emerge a generation of writers for whom colonialism is a matter of history and not of direct personal experience. In retrospect that literature characterised by Ngugi as Afro-European - the literature written by Africans in European languages - will come to be seen as part and parcel of the uneasy period between colonialism and full independence, a period equally reflected in the continent's political instability as it attempts to find its feet. Ngugi's importance - and that of this book - lies in the courage with which he has confronted this most urgent of issues. - Ngũgĩ's is a many splendored book. It is the personal testimony of an author who has fought a long battle of his own to undo the colonization of his mind. At the same time the book presents a historical analysis of subversion of personal identities and cultures of the colonized peoples in the process of colonization. It is also a book on the historical development of orature and literature in Africa. Finally, it is an essay in literary theory and criticism on the role of the artist in society. Ngũgĩ writes about Africa, his analysis applies to all of the Third World.