In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
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Decoloniser of the mind
Jenny Farrell pays tribute to the work of the great African writer NGUGI WA THIONG’O and his incisive Marxist analysis of the continent, past and present
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context
RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s
KENYAN-BORN writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who turned 80 this year, is nothing if not prolific. His first major novel Weep Not Child (1964) was followed by The River Between with its background of the Mau Mau war of independence, which he had witnessed, and A Grain of Wheat (1967).
He has gone on to write many plays, fiction, essays and memoirs, with his 1986 book Decolonising the Mind about the constructive role of language in Africa's national cultures, history and identity arguably his most significant.
For 10 years from 1977, Ngugi was a lecturer in the English literature department at the University of Nairobi where, to reflect a change of focus from English to world literature, he campaigned for the change of its name to simply the literature department.
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