Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (1998) - Decolonising The Mind
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (1998) - Decolonising The Mind
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (1998) - Decolonising The Mind
Ngugi wa Thiong’o
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The added irony is that what they have produced, despite any claims
to the contrary, is not African literature. The editors of the Pelican
Guides to English literature in their latest volume were right to include a
discussion of this literature as part of twentieth-century English litera-
ture, just as the French Academy was right to honour Senghor for his
genuine and talented contribution to French literature and language.
What we have created is another hybrid tradition, a tradition in tran-
sition, a minority tradition that can only be termed as Afro-European
literature; that is, the literature written by Africans in European lan-
guages. It has produced many writers and works of genuine talent:
Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ayi Kwei Armah, Sembene Ousmane,
Agostino Neto, S6dar Senghor and many others. Who can deny their tal-
ent ? The light in the products of their fertile imaginations has certainly
illuminated important aspects of the African being in its continuous
struggle against the political and economic consequences of Berlin and
after. However we cannot have our cake and eat it! Their work belongs to
an Afro-European literary tradition which is likely to last for as long as
*From Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (London,
Nairobi, Portsmouth, 1986), pp. 26-30.
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