By Iminza Keboge
Published May 28, 2019
A United States of America-based Kenyan writer and academic has won a major literary prize.
According to a statement from University of California Irvine (UCI) where Ngugi wa Thiong’o teaches English and Comparative Literature, the Kenyan academic has been awarded the 15th biennial Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize for Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature.
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Published by James Currey Ltd of Britain in 1986, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature looks at language and its constructive role in national culture, history and identity.
Noting that they are “honouring a writer who is concerned with the self-determination of African cultures and with a dissociation from colonial constraints,” the judges of the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize say wa Thiong’o’s “attempt to create a dialogue through literature in spite of or indeed because of the different languages evokes understanding for this continent and can thus contribute towards peace.”
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Apart from research and teaching, Ngugi wa Thiong’o has been writing and being published over the past 57 years. His first work was published by Makerere University Press of Uganda in 1962.
Some of his well known publications, running the gamut of essays, short stories, plays, novels and memoirs. include:
- Weep not Child, Heinemann, London, 1964
- The River Between, Heinemann, London, 1965
- A Grain of Wheat, Heinemann, London, 1967
- Petals of Blood, Heinemann, London, 1977
- Devil on the Cross , Heinemann, London, 1982
- Matigari, Heinemann, London, 1989
- Homecoming, Heinemann, London, 1969
- Writers in Politics, Heinemann, London, 1982
- Detained: A Writers Prison Diary, Heinemann, London, 1982
- Secret Lives, a collection, Heinemann, London, 1970
- The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, (with Micere Mugo); Heinemann, London, 1976
- I will marry when I want, (English trans. of the above); Heinemann, London, 1982.
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The Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, .that is endowed with 25000 Euros, is awarded for fictional, journalistic or scientific works that demonstrate an exemplary commitment to peace, humanity and freedom.
The 15th biennial Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize will be presented to wa Thiong’o, UCI Distinguished Professor of comparative literature and English, on November 29, 2019 at a ceremony in Osnabrück, Germany, the birthplace of novelist Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front, after whom the award is named.
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