Overview

• Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s family announced his death on May 28 in the United States and said a family spokesman will release funeral arrangements soon.
• His son Mukoma wa Ngũgĩ took to social media to mourn his father as the foundation of his life as both a writer and an academic.
• President William Ruto praised Ngũgĩ’s lifelong campaign to write in native African languages and to confront colonial and post-colonial power structures.
• Over a six-decade career he authored landmark works in English and Gikuyu, including the novels Un grano de trigo and Las nueve perfectas and the essay collection Descolonizar la mente.
• He endured imprisonment in 1977 for staging his play Ngaahika Ndeenda, spent the 1980s in exile in the United States and later served as a distinguished professor at the University of California.