Ngũgĩ’s story?: One that cannot be detained by politics, silenced by regimes

By Ndirangu Wachanga

NGUGI wa Thiong’o experimented with many literary forms—novels, short stories, plays, essays, and memoirs. His only attempt at the epic form gave us Kenda Mũiyũru, which he translated into English as The Perfect Nine — a lyrical retelling of the story of Gĩkũyũ, Mũmbi, and their nine daughters. I translated this epic into Kiswahili as Tisa Timilifu. Ngũgĩ read the opening pages and was eager to see the finished work. That was not to be. A day before his passing, the publisher, Mkuki na Nyota, shared the final cover with me. Tisa Timilifu has now been released.

I embraced the flavor of Kiswahili before President Arap Moi—despite all his demons—declared it a mandatory and examinable subject under the new 8-4-4 education system in 1985. Later, at the univeristy, I was the only student during my undergradute years to combine Literature in English, and Kiswahili (language, literature and linguistics- lugha, fasihi, na isimu) as my major.

When the 8-4-4 system was effected, only East African Educational Publishers (EAEP) had Kiswahili textbooks ready for the new curriculum. Under the visionary leadership of Henry Chakava, EAEP introduced the now-famous Masomo ya Msingi series. Chakava, a former student of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at the University of Nairobi, later became Ngũgĩ’s publisher and a lifelong friend.

During my own apprenticeship in publishing, I was tutored by Chakava. He often spoke about the risks he took to publish Ngũgĩ’s work. When Moi’s regime turned tyrannically paranoid, and even a fictional character like Matigari became a threat to the state, it was Chakava who bore the brunt. He was harassed and brutally attacked by machete-wielding thugs. Police raided his offices. They confiscated all printed copies of Matigari, and mockingly instructed him to invoice State House for the losses.

When the dictatorship forced Ngũgĩ into exile, it was Chakava who kept Ngũgĩ’s voice alive in Kenya—publishing his proscribed books with immense courage.

In exile, Ngũgĩ became like Matigari himself—reviled by the very nation he loved most. His Kenyan passport expired. His own country couldn’t renew it. He had to travel on a Ghanaian passport. It was on this Ghanaian passport that he flew from London to Tanzania, secretly supporting underground efforts for change back home.

While in Tanzania, he stayed with Walter Bgoya—a fellow traveler in the struggle for African self-definition, and founder of Mkuki na Nyota Publishers. Bgoya, who had worked closely with Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, is a witness to many stories—from Nyerere’s dialogues with Mao Zedong to conversations around the founding of the Organization of African Unity to the revolutionary and liberation movements in Southern Africa.

Last week, Bgoya’s Mkuki na Nyota published my Swahili translation of Ngũgĩ’s only epic – from Kenda Mũiyũru into Tisa Timilifu. This was my Covid-19 project. As I translated this epic, Ngugi was translating one of his earliest novels, The River Between. We exchanged notes often. He encouraged me often, and I am deeply indebted to him.

In 2023, Bgoya visited Ngugi in California. They reminisced about the old days—days when Kenya’s political exiles found sanctuary in Tanzania. It is such a biting irony today that Tanzania—a country that trained many of Kenya’s veteran legal scholars at the University of Dar es Salaam—would deny entry to our own Chief Justice Emeritus, an alumnus of that very institution.

And yet, even in the face of such ironies, Ngũgĩ’s words defy borders. A translated version of Ngugi’s epic has now been published in a country whose recent policies might have barred him from ever embracing his dear friend, Walter Bgoya, in person, in Tanzania.

If translation is indeed the language of languages, Ngũgĩ’s work remains a vital bridge between tongues—expanding our linguistic possibilities while deepening our capacity to imagine.

Still, what happens to that which resists to be translated? What happens to the untranslatable?

But isn’t that the power of a story—Ngũgĩ’s story? A story that cannot be detained by politics, silenced by regimes, or stopped at the border!

* Wachanga is a Professor at University of Princeton-Whitewater, US