Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s Writing Career: the Rise and the Development of a Dynamic African Literary Star

Abstract

A myriad of Ngugi’s readers may presuppose that the literary career of this celebrated African writer began at the University. Albeit it was at Makerere that he triumphantly wrote and subsequently published his first and second novels, Weep Not Child and The River Between for which reason he reveals in his own words that “I started writing in 1960. I was then a student at Makerere University College” (Homecoming: 47), and for Lindfords, Ngugi’s literary career begun specifically “towards the end of 1960” (23), evidences corroborate that Ngugi has started his literary writing since at the secondary school: the Alliance High School. The motive behind this article is to unveil that Ngugi’s literary writing career history is marvellous and distinctive. Although famous African writers the likes of late Achebe have written earlier than him, he is such a rare prolific writer, who has written at different places, at different periods, for different motives, with varying degrees of inspirations, all of which demonstrate an unprecedented, literary dynamism in his entire literary writing career.