Born James Thiong’o Ngugi to Thiong’o wa Nduucu and Wanjika wa Ngugi, Ngugi is the fifth child of the third of Thiong’o’s four wives. Ngugi was born on January 5, 1938, he is the East Africa’s leading novelist, whose popular Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first major novel in English by an East African. As he became sensitized to the effects of colonialism in Africa, he adopted his traditional name.

Ngugi received Bachelor degrees from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in 1963 and from Leeds University, Yorkshire, Eng., in 1964. After doing graduate work at Leeds, he served as a lecturer in English at University College, Nairobi, Kenya, and as a visiting professor of English at Northwestern University.

As a spokesman for his people and a chronicler of Kenya’s modern history, Ngugi is widely regarded as one of the most significant writers of East Africa.

Due to his vocal opposition of the injustices perpetrated by the postcolonial Kenyan government, Ngugi was arrested and imprisoned without charge in the Kamoto Maximum Security Prison from December 1977 to December 1978. While imprisoned, Ngugi wrote his memoirs, Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1981), and vowed to write his creative works only in the Kikuyu language.

Today Ngugi is recipient of many honours including the 2001 Nonino International Prize for Literature and seven honorary doctorates.

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