The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
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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
JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
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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