Ngugi wa Thiong’o's Personal and Political Beliefs Through A Grain of Wheat
Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a Kenyan born writer of Gikuyu descent, born in 1938 in Limuru. He attended Alliance High School in Kenya, Makere University in Uganda, and Leeds University in England. In 1992 Ngugi was honored with the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence, Political Conscience, and Integrity. He received the Gwendolyn Brooks Center Contributors’ Award for Significant Contribution to the Black Literary Arts in 1994. Currently he is The Erich Remarque Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University. However, before achieving this notability, Ngugi experienced life in a colonized country. This ultimately led Ngugi to become an active supporter of Kenyan independence and Jomo Kenyatta through his writings. Ngugi’s personal and political beliefs are reflected in his novel A Grain of Wheat, which he wrote as an optimistic patriot.
Ngugi has written numerous novels and plays on the politics, the corruption, capitalism, religious hypocrisy and the cultural effects of colonization. Some of his works include Weep Not, Child (1964), Decolonising the Mind (1986), and Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary (1981). To further support his political belief, Ngugi stopped writing his books in English. He called his book Decolonising the Mind his "farewell to English" (Margulis http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Ngugi.html) because it would become his last book written in English. In 1978 Ngugi was imprisoned for one year, without trial, by the Kenyan government after co-writing the play I Will Marry When I Want. It was during this imprisonment that he wrote the book Detained to describe his ordeal. However, Ngu...
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... the elections. Ngugi does remain optimistic that one day his people will reunite and learn that change is inevitable, and one-day Kenya will achieve what its founding fathers envisioned.
Works Cited
Behrent, Megan. “Ngugi wa Thiong’o on the Language Question”. Online posting. 1997. Political Discourse – Theories of Colonialism & Postcolonialism. November 10, 1999. <http://landow.stg.brown.edu/post/poldiscourse/behrent.html.>
Margulis, Jennifer. “Ngugi wa Thiong’o”. Online posting. Spring 1996. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. November 10, 1999. <http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Ngugi.html.>
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Personal Interview. October 28, 1999.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o. A Grain of Wheat: New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1967.
"Ngugi wa Thiong'o" Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=57045&sctn=1 [November 10, 1999]
Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue." 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 4th Edition. Ed. Samuel Cohen. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 417-23. Print.
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Since the turn of the century, efforts have been made to develop immunizations and vaccines. Which has been met with controversy over their ethics, effectiveness, morality and safety? Health care workers, teachers, parents and children all have an important stake in this issue across the United States. Currently, health care professionals have given parents the choice between vaccinating children or not. Now, health care officials may oppose that view based on the grounds that children will be exposed to vaccine-preventable diseases if not vaccinated. Since this is a risk that parents are willing to take, yet others are against then there is an obvious debate at hand. Which is why I’m in agreement for vaccinations being mandatory. So,
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Rose, N and Bubby, H (2206) ‘Active Sport’ in DCMS (2006) Taking part: The national survey of culture, leisure and sport, annual report 2005/2006, DCMS, London
Stubble, Maria and Janet Holmes. “ Talking Maori or Pakeha in English”. Bell&Kuiper Eds. 249-279
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In Chinua Achebe 's classic novel "Things Fall Apart," the development of European colonization 's lead to extreme cultural changes, leaving a lasting impact on the Igbo village of Umofia in West Africa. In the novel, Achebe displays the impacts of European colonization in both critical and sympathetic terms to provide the reader with both positive and negative factors of Imperialism to develop an unbiased understanding of what the Igbo culture and society went through. While addressing the hardship 's of life by showing the deterioration of Okonkwo 's character, the cultural and traditional changes of society, and the positive and negative impacts of imperialism, Achebe keeps touch on the overall theme of the novel, once a dramatic event
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Gu, Lily Herman and Steven. "All day, every day: the pros and cons of year-round schools." The Prospect. The Prospect, 2016. . 21 March 2017.
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