000			02654pam a2200205 4500
001			7800
005			20181127184410.0
010			_a 86004683
020			_a0435080164 (pbk.) : _c$7.50 (est.)
082	0	0	_a809/.889/6 _219
100	0		_aThiongʾo, Ngugi wa _d1938-
245	1	0	_aDecolonising the mind : _bthe politics of language in African literature / _cNgugi wa Thiongʾo.
260			_aLondon : _bJ. Currey ; _aPortsmouth, N.H. : _bHeinemann, _c1986.
300			_axiv, 114 p. ; _c22 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographies and index.
505			_aContents: Towards the universal language of struggle -- The language of African literature -- The language of African theatre -- The language of African fiction -- The quest for relevance -- Index. _g _r _t
520			_aNgugi wa Thiong'o famously began his writing career writing in English (publishing under the name "James Ngugi"). He had considerable success, but eventually turned to writing in his mother tongue, Gikuyu (though he did translate and publish these later works in English too). Ngugi is among a handful of authors who have written successfully in more than one language -- Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov are among the few others -- but his reasons for doing so differ somewhat from those of other bilingual authors. Decolonising the Mind is both an explanation of how he came to write in Gikuyu, as well as an exhortation for African writers to embrace their native tongues in their art. The foreign languages most African authors write in are the languages of the imperialists -- English, French, and Portuguese -- that were relatively recently imposed on them. (Ngugi doesn't consider Arabic in the same light, nor Swahili.) Ngugi makes a good case for the obvious point: that the relation of Africans to those imposed languages is a very different one from that which the same Africans have to the native languages they speak at home. Speaking and writing in the language of the colonisers will naturally be different than in the language one speaks while at play or with one's family. In addition, the language of the coloniser is often a truly foreign one: segments of society understand it badly, if at all, and so certain audiences can not be reached by works in these imposed languages. (The validity of some of these points has, however, diminished over the past decades, as literacy has spread and French, Portuguese, and especially English have established themselves as linguae francae across much of the continent.)
650		0	_aAfrican literature _xHistory and criticism.
651		0	_aAfrica _xLanguages _xPolitical aspects.
999			_c6698 _d6698