SOURCE: Pelton, Theodore. “Ngugi wa Thiong'o and the Politics of Language.” Humanist 53, no. 2 (March-April 1993): 15-20.

In the following essay, Pelton investigates Ngugi's literary, political, and cultural significance within the context of postcolonial African literature.

I am concerned with moving the centre … from its assumed location in the West to a multiplicity of spheres in all the cultures of the world. {This} will contribute to the freeing of world cultures from the restrictive walls of nationalism, class, race, and gender. In this sense I am an unrepentant universalist. For I believe that while retaining its roots in regional and national individuality, true humanism with its universal reaching out, can flower among the peoples of the earth. …

—Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms

The name Ngugi wa Thiong'o may be less recognizable to American audiences than those of Nobel Prize-winning African writers Nadine Gordimer and...