Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: The power of our words – Nsemkeka
A personal remembrance of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who saw freedom in language, power in mother tongues, and poetry in memory. The Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and I first met in mid-May 2006, in Accra, Ghana, at the 32nd annual conference of the African Literature Association.
A couple of years later, I moved back to Los Angeles. I learned that he taught at the University of California, Irvine, an hour’s drive from my house. I decided to go.
After that first visit, we met pretty regularly. We would often go to a local café or talk as we strolled around the lush campus, under and around a forest of towering eucalyptus trees. People would pass us by without so much as a glance or second thought. It amazed me that such a literary giant could go unnoticed. I had to stifle the urge to stop those students and ask, “Don’t you know who this man is?” But the man himself couldn’t have cared less about that.
He stood at about 5 feet 4 inches with a slender build and a small beard. He didn’t call attention to himself. He was jovial, quick-witted, and he loved to laugh. He was measured in his speech, often pausing to consider the exact word he wanted to use.
Ngũgĩ was a master of language. He believed that those for whom English was a colonial language should fight for the survival of our mother tongues. He wrote everything, first, in his native Gĩkũyũ; then later, his work was translated into English.
One afternoon while having lunch, I announced to Ngũgĩ that I would no longer be going by my English, aka Christian, name, Meri. I would, instead be using my given Ghanaian name, Nana-Ama.
He shrugged, said, “I don’t think Meri is such a bad name.” By then, our conversations had found their rhythm; I did not miss a beat. I said, “I hear what you’re saying, James,” calling him by the colonial baptismal name he’d rejected in his early thirties as he fully embraced his African identity. We both laughed.
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Ngũgĩ was my elder. As such, he was often paternal towards me, particularly when I became unwell. The father of ten, that role came naturally to him.
In 2016 I had a hysterectomy. It would take a few weeks of healing before I’d have the abdominal strength to climb the staircase in my home. I decided to spoil myself; I booked a suite at a luxury hotel.
He’d offered to take me out for a meal the day after surgery. I insisted we have dinner at a steakhouse conveniently located in the hotel lobby. It would be my treat, I assured him.
That evening, Ngũgĩ arrived with his then-wife, Njeeri, his children Wanjiku and Nducu, both acclaimed authors; and Wanjiku’s daughter, Nyambura. We were joined by my daughter, Korama, and bonus son, Christopher. We gathered in my suite for apéritifs and small talk. Ngũgĩ asked me to read an essay I’d recently shared with him.
Whenever we spoke, he would ask, “What are you writing?” Then he’d say, “Send it to me,” or “Read it to me.” He was always excited to speak with me about literature, always eager to hear about what I was writing.
At the restaurant, I took the liberty of ordering appetisers for the table: individual servings of bone marrow flan. The look on Ngũgĩ’s face as he watched the server set down a plate in front of him with only a bone on it was priceless.
“I never thought such a place like this,” he said, obviously bemused, “a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant, would be serving bones. Hmm. I see.”
“You know how we used to eat these bones when I was a kid in Kenya?” Ngũgĩ asked, taking a small scoop of marrow with the demitasse spoon. “We would sit under the tree and suck the marrow straight from the bone,” he said nostalgically, “and use our tongue to get the pieces stuck inside. Then we would suck all the juice still in the bone.” There was a spell of silence during which, I believe, we all wished we could take our bone, step inside that enchanting memory, and decolonise our mouths and fingers.
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Every year over the past two decades, Ngũgĩ was reported to be a top contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. And every year, his name would not be announced.
“Maybe they are waiting until I die,” he said, with a chuckle. “You know, the world appreciates people more when they are dead, especially artists and writers.”
Many of the African writers of his era are unsung. They had been the moral conscience of post-colonial Africa, holding politicians accountable, reminding people that the battle for freedom didn’t end with the land; it’s a battle of liberation for the body, the mind, and the spirit.
I think other people cared much more about Ngũgĩ receiving a Nobel Prize than he did. Throughout his career, he’d received a host of awards and accolades. The work was always what mattered most to him.
I assumed Ngũgĩ would be around for many more years. He had survived life experiences and health conditions that would’ve felled lesser men.
Last week, while I was on the line with Wanjiku, Ngũgĩ walked by the room so she put the phone on speaker for us to talk. I asked how he was; he told me he was sick. “I’m an old man,” he said, “I’m 87.”
“And so? Some people are 97, even 107,” I countered. “They would consider you a spring chicken.” He wasn’t buying it. He was polite, but seemed distracted. I turned to a topic that had always piqued his interest.
“I just finished a book proposal,” I said.
“Ah, that’s good.”
“Should I send it to you?” He said no. That caught me off guard. No?
“My brain is too tired,” he shared, his voice gentle, with a hint of resignation. “I never thought there would come a day when my brain would be too tired for reading.”
When Ngũgĩ and I finished speaking, I told Wanjiku I wanted to come see him. She said sure, that I could stay at the house.
On May 28th, the day Ngũgĩ died, I called Wanjiku. “He’s gone,” she said softly. I raised my eyes, looked at an entire shelf of his books, and felt his presence. I’ve not yet come to terms with the fact that I will never see Ngũgĩ again. I thought of him all that day; everything led back to a conversation, an interaction. We covered a lot of ground, he and I. He inspired me to grow as a thinker, as a writer, as an African woman in the world. He showed me the true power of language, beyond the written word: language as history, as dignity, as freedom.
“If you know all the languages of the world but don’t know your mother tongue, or the language of your culture, that is enslavement. On the other hand, if you know your mother tongue or the languages of your culture, and you add all the languages of the world to it, that is empowerment. And we should choose empowerment over enslavement,”
— Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
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Nana-Ama Danquah is a writer who divides her time between California and Ghana.