African Culturalist Subversion of Western Otherizing Logic in Decolonising the Mind: Ngugi’s Indigenization Project

Abstract

When discussing African literature, it becomes impossible to bypass the issue of language, and more importantly African native languages, which seem to be close to quasi-inexistent when it comes to writing in them. In fact, most African written literature has come to life using the languages of the European languages imposed by force and at times subtly by the colonizers. In his book groundbreaking Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan writer and critic, addresses the issue by attacking these European languages in practice in both African nation-states and literature, and what the said languages represent ideologically and hegemonically when in use in Africa. In order to have a truly African literature, i.e. one utterly independent from the former colonial influences, Ngugi proposes a literature in African in African indigenous languages. How does he go about putting this in practice? Does such a proposition fit well in our days and age? These are the questions, among others, this paper seeks to address.

Keywords

• africa
• literature
• indigenous
• europe
• west
• subversion
• culture