For Thursday: Handout: Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's "The Language of African Literature"

Read this work in light of Achebe's criticims of Conrad and Kincaid's A Small Place, both of which works are informed by Ngugi's ideas.  The except is part of Chapter 1 of his book, Decolonizing the Mind (1986).  If you missed class, you can find the handout in the box on my door, 336C.  As usual, here are some ideas to ponder or write about:

* What is the true power of language for him?  Why is language so important to a child (or a culture's) mental universe?  What, to him, is the danger of speaking and writing in the colonizer's tongue? 

* Related to this, what does he mean when he writes, "Learning, for a colonial child, became a cerebral activity and not an emotionally felt experience?" (17).

* How does he enter into the debate as to what constitutes "African" literature?  For him is it birth, race, nationality, language, or some other quality? 

* Related to the above, how might he disagree with Achebe's views on literature and art?  How does he criticize Achebe specifically?

* Why, to him, is learning the colonizer's tongue tantamout to betraying one's culture and values? 

* How does storytelling change when you remove one's native tongue?  Why might a story in English not have the same resonance or "lessons" for a child who grew up speaking Gikuyu? 

* What does he mean when he writes, "Language as culture is thus mediating between me and my own self; between my own self and other selves; between me and nature" (15)?