Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu: [ᵑɡoɣe wá ðiɔŋɔ]; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938 – 28 May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature.

Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in English before switching to writing primarily in Gikuyu and becoming a strong advocate for literature written in native African languages. His works include novels such as the celebrated novel The River Between, plays, short stories, memoirs, children's literature and essays ranging from literary to social criticism. He was the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His 2016 short story "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright" has been translated into more than 100 languages.

In 1977, Ngũgĩ embarked upon a novel form of theatre in Kenya that sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances. His project sought to "demystify" the theatrical process, and to avoid the "process of alienation [that] produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers" which, according to Ngũgĩ, encourages passivity in "ordinary people". Although his landmark play Ngaahika Ndeenda (1977), co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, was a commercial success, it was shut down by the then authoritarian Kenyan regime six weeks after its opening.