Ngugi wa Thiong'o The poetics of Language and his quest for a socially relevant aesthetic ideology

Abstract

The dominance of European languages in African literature has been a persistent and controversial issue in African literary discourses. However, writers and critics have generally focused on the relative merits and demerits of writing either in a European or an indigenous African language. This study takes a different dimension. Defining language as an epistemological code that reifies the manner in which people view their world, the study examines Ngugi wa Thiong’o‘s experimentation with language and narrative and the effect of Gikuyu oral poetics on his aesthetic quest. It shows how Ngugi’s aesthetic choices change at the interface of language and ideology as he seeks for an aesthetic of representation of a social reality that is constantly changing. The study is anchored on postcolonialism, Bakhtinian dialogism, and Marxist class analysis. It examines Ngugi’s formation as a writer in order to show the effect of Gikuyu gnosis, Kenya's history and colonial culture — Christianity and the Great Tradition of English literature » as well as Fanonist-Marxist social analysis on Ngugi’s quest for an aesthetic that would adequately represent his social vision. This quest is traced from his English language writings to his Gikuyu works. The study focuses on Ngugi's involvement in the Kamiriithu community participatory theatre project as an important threshold in his development as a writer and an intellectual. This is when Ngugi came to appreciate the potentiality of Gikuyfi as a literary language, a development that finally settled the problem of language choice for him. Ngugi’s decision to write in Gikuyu led to the production of highly innovative novels. My study of his Gikuyu novels examines the aesthetic effects of the shift from English to Gikuyu as his preferred literary medium. Literature is a cultural discourse. Writing in Gikuyu privileges not just the language but also its inherent cultural and aesthetic codes. The study examines the issue of translation, showing the limits of the translatability of culture. Whereas conventionally translators have tended to be “invisible” especially when translating the works of such overarching authors as Ngugi, the study highlights the agency of the translator and shows how a translator can shape the meaning of a text. in addition, the study shows that it is possible to translate indigenous African-language literature into English without compromising on the way Africans view and represent their world. While Ngugi’s advocacy of African languages has been viewed as somewhat inflexible, the study comes to the conclusion that whether writing in English or Gikuyu, Ngugi is a most pragmatic and creative user of language.