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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1 (Parts VI-IX): "The Language of African Literature" .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does "Ngaahika Ndeenda" translate to in English?
(a) I Will Marry When I Want.
(b) Mother Sing for Me.
(c) A Meeting in the Dark.
(d) Devil on the Cross.

2. What term used by the author in the Introduction is defined by him as having the effect of annihilating a people's belief in their names, languages, unity, and ultimately, themselves?
(a) Educational restructuring.
(b) Communal restructuring.
(c) Segregation.
(d) A cultural bomb.

3. Whose perceptions of Africa does the author described in Chapter 1, Part V as "comparable to a land of childhood still enveloped in the dark mantle of the night as far as the development of self-conscious history was concerned" (18)?
(a) Thomas Jefferson.
(b) Gabriel Okara.
(c) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
(d) Sir H. Rider Haggard.

4. What is the name of the secret diary that Gakaara wa Wanjaũ kept while in political detention?
(a) Ngaahika Ndeenda.
(b) Matigari ma Njiruungi.
(c) Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ.
(d) Mwandĩki wa Mau Mau Ithaamĩrioinĩ.

5. What does the word "vacillating" mean as used in Chapter 1, Part VI?
(a) Fluctuating.
(b) De-escalating.
(c) Escalating.
(d) Failing.

Short Answer Questions

1. For how long was Gakaara wa Wanjaũ imprisoned for his writings in Gĩkũyũ?

2. The author poses the question in Chapter 1, Part VIII, "What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without" what (26)?

3. How many years of involvement had Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o spent writing literature in Englis when the author began writing in Gĩkũyũ?

4. What novel of the author's did he hope to give a transcript of to Chinua Achebe at the writers' conference described in Chapter 1, Part II?

5. The author states in Chapter 1, Part IX that "to the comprador-ruling regimes, their real enemy is" what (30)?

(see the answer key)

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