Ngugi Wa Thiong’o Lived A Full Life, On His Terms: My Tribute

As a young boy growing up in Baricho, Kirinyaga, the world often felt small, bounded by the red soil beneath my feet, the hum of maize mills, and the dreams we dared to speak out loud. Yet, even in that smallness, stories and books gave us wings. I devoured the works of Barbara Kimenye, who brought Moses to life with mischief and charm. Cynthia Hunter shaped my young imagination with tales tailored for minds still unformed. Meja Mwangi's Across the Bridge introduced me to characters like Chikuri and Kisangi : gritty, flawed, and alive.

But it was years later that I encountered a voice that would forever change how I understood not just literature but power, politics, and what it meant to be Kenyan. My friend Clement handed me Barrel of a Pen by Professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o with a whisper of caution: "Don't read this in public. Moi banned it."

And so, tucked away from watchful eyes, I turned the pages, and somewhere between the ink and ideology, I awakened.

The book introduced me to The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, co-written with Micere Mugo, a theatrical storm of defiance. In it, a shackled Kimathi refuses to plead, rejecting the very legitimacy of the colonial state. That moment stirred something profound in me: a longing to understand the chains that still clung to us long after Kenya declared independence. I dreamt of someday telling Mwalimu Ngũgĩ how that book sparked my awakening.

That dream came true in 2012.

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was visiting Los Angeles, and among the guests was none other than Professor Ngũgĩ. I saw him; I shook his hand. I wanted to tell him everything:  how his words found me, changed me, but he was rushing. I thought that would be the only encounter.

But fate was kinder.

In the years that followed, especially in the last five years, I met Mwalimu again. And again.

When he lived in California, barely 35 kilometers from me, I would make the drive. Those afternoons were sacred. Or we would just talk on the phone. When we spoke, or rather, when he spoke to me, I listened, soaking in the wisdom of a man who had walked through fire and emerged whole.

And yet, he listened too. Truly listened.

Once, he asked me, "Who the hell named you, Mukurima?" And just like that, I was laughing in the company of a man whose books had once made me tremble.

Mwalimu was brilliant, disarmingly so. But his genius never cast a shadow. He had a way of making you feel seen. I would often bring a portable speaker when I visited. Music would break up the intensity of our conversations. If the rhythm were right, he would rise to dance. I would join him. We laughed over Makibi James, debated Beyoncé's "Texas Hold' Em," and, yes, even parsed the songwriting choices of Taylor Swift. Beneath the revolutionary was a lover of art in all its forms.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was born in Limuru to peasant parents who land grabbers had dispossessed. His mother, a woman of quiet strength, insisted he get an education. He did. And with that education, he became a towering voice- first against colonialism and then against the betrayal that followed independence.

He wrote without fear. And for that, he was imprisoned. Exiled and targeted but never silenced. From those dark spaces, he forged words that rang like bells: clear, unrelenting, necessary. He did not wait for change. He became it.

 For decades, he lit fires in classrooms across the world, most recently at UC Irvine, where his impact went far beyond lectures and literature. Mwalimu opened doors for many African and Kenyan students to enter the UCI system, not just through admissions, but by advocating, mentoring, guiding. Some students walked those halls because he had cleared the path. They weren’t just reading Ngũgĩ. They were living in the wake of his generosity.

Sometimes, out of the blue, Mwalimu would call me and say, “I wrote something-a short poem. Can I read it to you?” And there, over the phone, he would recite his latest work which he loved calling “irebeta”- waiting after each stanza to hear what I thought.

He didn’t just want praise. He wanted critique.

Then he would ask me to share it on social media, to give the words wings. And the next day, he would call again, half-laughing: “That one seems to have spread far and wide. I have been getting calls here and there..”

In those moments, I saw not just the legend, but the artist: eager, vulnerable, still curious about the world’s reaction to his work.

To many in the West, Mwalimu was Africa's literary conscience. Barack Obama once called him one of Africa's best writers and thinkers. Yale University honored him with a Doctor of Letters alongside figures like John Kerry and Stevie Wonder. In his citation, President Peter Salovey said:

"You have worked in prison cells and exile; you have survived assassination attempts-all to bring attention to the plight of ordinary people in Kenya and around the world."

Yet, for all the global accolades, there was a quiet wound in the professor's heart: the silence from home. Only two African universities, one in Tanzania and one in Kenya, ever awarded him an honorary degree. His alma mater, the University of Nairobi, never did.

He once told me, not bitterly, but with a deep pause, that his recognition abroad often felt like betrayal at home.

And I saw it firsthand.

In June 2024, we organized a celebration in his honor in Atlanta.  A group of us in the diaspora came together-we fundraised, reached out to corporations (especially in Kenya), and invited the community. It was time to give this man his flowers while he could still smell them. But no major organization wanted to be associated with him. He had been, quietly and efficiently, canceled.

We were told it was because of "reputational risk." That he was a man under siege-old accusations of domestic issues resurfaced in whispers and judgment.

But we pressed on. And the event was beautiful. One man who stood tall and refused to cancel Ngũgĩ was Senior Counsel Pheroze Nowrojee. I will never forget that.

In our private talks, Ngũgĩ was deeply introspective. He once told me that his issue was never with individuals, even those who had harmed him. He did not believe in personal vengeance. "Direct your anger to the ideologies," he would say. "Because human beings can change."

He saw humor in the absurdities of our world. He would joke about colonialism buried in marriage customs. He wondered why a woman named Waitherero would erase her name to be known as Eunice ‘W.” Mwangi. “Nikiii marakunîkîra rîtwa ithaka?” he woukd ask, pacing. Why bury your name in the name of your husband in systems you did not choose?

We would talk about language, how some Kirinyaga people now say Muithikiri instead of Mbigi, trying to sound more like Kiambu. "That's normalizing the abnormal," he would declare. "That's how culture erodes-softly, slowly, without a fight."

He also grieved for the church, not as an institution, but as a moral compass. "Kanitha wa Karing'a," he would lament, "used to feed the hungry, fight for land, shelter the oppressed. Today's church… it's lost that fire."

Professor Ngũgĩ lived a whole life. A difficult one. A necessary one. A joyful one. A defiant one. He danced, he laughed, and he challenged us to think more deeply, to speak more boldly, to love more radically.

One thing I learned from my interactions with Mwalimu: He loved his family. Man, he couldn’t stop talking about his children. He loved them dearly.

And now he is gone.

But the words remain. The revolution lives on in ink, in memory, in us. And in a world so quick to forget, we will remember. We will read him. We will teach him. We will not wait for death to give him praise.

Mwalimu, you did not die as a forgotten man.

You were and forever will be our conscience.

Rest well, son of Limuru.

Your pen never ran dry.

And when we dance again, we will play Makibi James, Joseph Kamari, and remember the professor who danced with joy, wrote with fire, and loved us all the same.