Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is gone, but his words still speak

 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is gone, but his words still speak

By Kondwani Nyondo

In African literature classrooms from Nairobi to Lilongwe, generations of students have turned the dog-eared pages of Weep Not, Child and Petals of Blood under the dim glow of campus bulbs. 

Now, with the passing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at age 87, Africa has not merely lost a novelist—it will be burying a rebellion bound in pages, a resistance inked in Gikuyu and English, in pain and pride. 

Born James Ngugi in 1938 during Kenya’s colonial shadows, he would one day renounce both the language and the name forced upon him. In doing so, he birthed Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o—not just a name, but a literary fist raised against the empire. 

In Malawi, long before literary festivals found room for his name on their programs, Ngũgĩ was already at home in classrooms. His novels—Weep Not, Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood—were staples in secondary school English literature syllabi. 

His literary rebellion became a moral compass for young African writers who, like Malawi's own Jack Mapanje and Walije Gondwe, sought to challenge colonial residues through verse and prose. 

In universities, his essays and plays were core to courses on African literature and postcolonial studies, influencing not just literature students but also those in political and social thought. 

To many, he was not just a writer—he was the African Karl Marx. Like Marx, Ngũgĩ believed that true liberation could only come when the oppressed seized the means of production. But for Ngũgĩ, the tools weren’t just factories and land—they were words, languages, and stories. 

He argued that African minds remained colonised because their languages had been robbed—and with them, their epistemologies, identities, and confidence. 

Where Marx called for workers to unite, Ngũgĩ called for African writers and thinkers to reject colonial languages. Where Marx dissected economic oppression, Ngũgĩ diagnosed linguistic imperialism—how language was used as an instrument of domination, creating a class of Africans alienated from their roots, their history, and their people. 

In Decolonising the Mind, Ngũgĩ’s equivalent of The Communist Manifesto, he laid down his ideological challenge: African writers must return to African languages if they were serious about cultural and political emancipation. 

His vision of decolonisation wasn’t about replacing one president with another—it was about re-rooting the soul of the continent. It was structural, philosophical, and cultural. That’s why his revolutionary spirit mirrored Marx’s: both were anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, and unwavering in their pursuit of human dignity. 

"Ngũgĩ was not just a writer. He was a continent whisperer,” Pius Nyondo, Malawi’s young novelist and former secretary of the Malawi Writers Union. 

“When I first read Weep Not, Child in secondary school, I didn't just meet a character; I met a wound,” Nyondo continues. “His stories held our trauma up to a mirror.” 

Iwell Thawi, a media trainer and journalist who now lectures at the Malawi Institute of Journalism in Lilongwe, also recalls how Ngũgĩ changed his path. 

"I remember when I was in Form 3, my eyes were first greeted by one of his novels—A Grain of Wheat. To this day, I can vividly recall some lines that moved me. No wonder he became my favourite after reading several of his titles,” he says. 

He added: “Today he is gone, just after giving us the title Decolonising the Mind, and he leaves us with Decolonising the Language. In view of the two, which can be said to be forerunners to his sunset, one can clearly see the revolutionary tone of one great son of Africa.” 

His final years were no quieter. 

As if Decolonising the Mind was a challenge, he left us still chewing on its spiritual sequel: Decolonising the Language. 

In these, the revolutionary arc was complete—from the mechanics of power to the soul of identity. 

He made it clear—the colonizer may have left our land, but still lives in our tongues. 

"I once scribbled in the margins of Petals of Blood: ‘This man is mad.’ Years later, I reread it and realised—no, this man is free," said Emanuel Chikuse one of young Malawian promising writers.

In a heartfelt tribute posted on Facebook, celebrated Malawian writer and former president of the Malawi Writers Union, Onjezani Kenani, mourned Ngũgĩ’s passing with reverence and recollection.

"In 2010, I was honoured to chat with the great man of letters, when Prof. Emilia Ilieva—who had included my short story in a Kenyan secondary school anthology—took me to meet him in downtown Nairobi. Such a humble man. He spoke about his friend, David Rubadiri, and also of Jack Mapanje. He signed for me a copy of his book Decolonising the Mind, and chuckled as he did: ‘Why this one of all my books?’” 

Even in the digital age, Ngũgĩ’s relevance soared.

His verified Facebook page, with over two million followers, made him one of the most followed African literary figures online—a rare feat for any writer, let alone one who wrote primarily in Gikuyu. 

Ngũgĩ’s works will remain etched in African syllabi, yes—but more importantly, in the bones of African identity. 

In a continent still negotiating its postcolonial voice, he dared us to ask hard questions: Who are we when we speak? Who do we become when we write? 

In many ways, his death is less of a goodbye. He leaves the continent with ink-stained roadmaps and a challenge to writers, thinkers, and rebels: Will they write in truth, or in translation? Will they fight for the liberation of the African mind, or stay complicit in its bondage? 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o may no longer breathe. But his words—fierce, uncolonized—still do.