Renowned Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o has died at age 87, his family members have announced.
“It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dad, Ngugi wa Thiong’o,” his daughter Wanjiku Wa Ngugi wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
“He lived a full life, fought a good fight,” she said.
At the time of his death, Ngugi was reportedly receiving kidney dialysis treatments, but his immediate cause of death is still unknown.
Born in Kenya in 1938, Ngugi will be remembered as one of Africa’s most important postcolonial writers. Formative events in Ngugi’s early life included the brutal Mau Mau war that swept British-ruled Kenya in the 1950s.
Ngugi’s work was equally critical of the British colonial era and the postcolonial society that followed Kenya’s independence in 1963. Other topics in his work covered the intersection between language, culture, history, and identity.
Ngugi made a mark for himself in the 1970s when he decided to switch from writing in English to the Kikuyu and Swahili languages – a controversial decision at the time.
“We all thought he was mad… and brave at the same time,” Kenyan writer David Maillu told the AFP news agency.
“We asked ourselves who would buy the books.”
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