79th birthday of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

(Born 5 January 1938, Kamĩrĩĩthũ, Kenya)

Novelist, playwright, essayist, conscience and treasured dissident voice in these turbulent times in the African World, indefatigable promoter of publishing in African languages as he, himself, has done consistently in the Gĩkũyũ beginning in the late 1970s when he publishes Caitaani Mũtharabainĩ which he later translates into English as Devil on the Cross (1980)

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Devil on the Cross (London: Heinemann African Writers, 1987, 256pp, £9.41/US$12.20, pbk)

For a succinct insight into the expansive contributions of  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o to the heritage of African World Letters and associated development, see, for instance, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (Dakar & Reading: African Renaissance, 2011), pp. 45-50. 

(Joe Henderson Quartet, “Keystone” [personnel: Henderson, tenor saxophone; Chick Corea, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Studio-Masters, Los Angeles, US, [?] January 1980])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe