Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1938- )

1938 (5th. January) - Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born of Gikuyu descent in Kamiriithu Village, near Limuru in Kiambu District of Kenya, 12 miles north-east of Nairobi.

1947 - Ngugi went to the Church of Scotland mission primary school at Kamaandura in Limuru.

1949 - Ngugi went to a school of the Karing'a, the Independent Schools Movement, in a village called Maanguu.

1954 to 1958 - Ngugi received his secondary education at Alliance High School situated at Kikuyu, eight miles north-west of Nairobi.

[Alliance High School figures repeatedly in Ngugi's works as Siriana Secondary School, the school to which Karanja helps Mumbi send her younger brother, Kariuki, in A Grain of Wheat.]

1954 to 1956 - Ngugi's brother, Wallace Mwangi, went into the forest to join the Mau Mau forces.

1954 or 1955 - a step brother of Ngugi's, of the same name and condition as the deaf and dumb Gitogo who is shot dead by government forces in A Grain of Wheat, died in identical circumstances.

1952 - Ngugi was 14 years old. The start of the Emergency; open hostilities had considerably subsided by 1954, but intensive clandestine activities persisted up to 1956.

1959 - Ngugi began to read for a degree in Economics at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda.

[At this time Makerere University College was the only institution conferring degrees in East Africa.]

While he was at Makerere, Ngugi became editor of the student journal of creative writing, Pinpoint, and became the key figure in monitoring Makerere University College's important contribution to the development of East African literature.

1961 - Ngugi's marriage partnership with Nyambura began.

1961 - Ngugi's eldest son, Thiong'o, is born.

1962 - The Black Hermit, a full-length play, is produced for Uganda Independence.

1963 - Ngugi gained a BA honours degree in English.

1963 - Ngugi's second son, Kimunya, is born.

1964 (March to September) - Ngugi returns to Kenya and works as a journalist for the Nation group of newspapers in Nairobi.

1964 (October) - Ngugi commences a two-year MA course in Caribbean literature at the University of Leeds, England.

1964 - Weep Not, Child is published.

1965 - The River Between is published.

1967 - A Grain of Wheat is published.

1967 (July) - Ngugi returns to Kenya.

1967 - Ngugi takes up a special lectureship in English at Nairobi University.

1969 (March) - Ngugi resigns his post because of his strong reactions during a confrontation between the university, especially the student body, and the government.

1969 - Ngugi returns to Makerere University College for one year as Fellow in Creative Writing.

[Ngugi plays an important role in the active Writers Group and organised a successful writers' workshop.

He put together the collected edition of his short stories and published his short plays in a volume entitled This Time Tomorrow.

During his Fellowship at Makerere, Ngugi was also able to participate in the reorganisation of the English syllabus, moving it from a traditional British structure to one based primarily on African literature and on World literature.]

1970 - Ngugi goes for one year to Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, to teach African literature.

1971 - Ngugi's first daughter, Mukoma, is born.

197? - Ngugi's second daughter, Wanjiku, is born.

1971 (August) - Ngugi returns to the Department of English at Nairobi University, where he becomes Chairman of the Department and sets about changing the focus of literary studies at the University.

[Ngugi defends the case that the study of English literature in Nairobi was out of place and that the Department of the English should be substituted by the Department of African literature and languages, thereby placing African writing in the forefront of attention.]

1975 - Secret Lives is published. [His contributions to Pinpoint and others from this period]

1977 - The Trial of Dedan Kimathi is produced by the Kenya National Theatre. This popular play presents the cause of Mau Mau as the inspiring starting point of the continuing struggle for social justice.

1977 - Petals of Blood, Ngugi's fourth novel, is published.

[This novel is a key work not only in Ngugi's personal development but also in the development of radical African literature.]

1977 - Ngaahika Ndeenda, a play in Gikuyu, is written by Ngugi and Ngugi Mirii.

1977 (November) - Ngugi becomes deeply involved in the staging of the play at Kamiriithu Community Educational and Cultural Centre in his home town, Limuru - at first with official permission.

After the first performances, however, the district commissioner of Kiambu revoked the licence.

The play was said by the district commissioner to be an attempt to stir up animosity between various sections of the community on the basis of their respective roles during Kenya's bloody Mau Mau rebellion.

The play was banned.

1977 (December 31st) - Ngugi is arrested by the police, taken away for questioning and does not return for almost one year.

During Ngugi's imprisonment, appeals, protest meetings in various parts of the world (notably in London) and delegations to Nairobi, including one from Nigeria led by Wole Soyinka, produced little effect before the change of govenment.

1978 - Njooki, Ngugi's third daughter, is born while Ngugi is in detention.

In December 1978, Ngugi gave an interview in which he spoke about his time in prison.

This interview took place following his release in the generally conciliatory atmosphere of the early months of President Arap Moi's new regime:

"When I was arrested, I was taken to Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, in Kiambu, where I was kept behind stone walls for a whole year... I was not tried in an open court of law. I have never, even now, been told of any specific reasons for my detention... I had no access to radio or newspapers. I was for a period confined to a cell for 21 hours a day under the full glare of an electric bulb. This is a mental torture... I had no privacy whatever. I was also told that I had to be chained as a condition for my seeing my family or for medical treatment... So though I personally had no direct experience of physical beating in detention, I was always under extreme mental and psychological torture.

I was lucky in that I was put where there were 19 other detainees. And I was very impressed by the way in which these detainees had been able to withstand prison pressures for the last of three, four, 10 years. The detainees also struck me, on the whole, as people who were extremely patriotic, people who loved Kenya and people who had been put in because they had spoken out about the poverty of the masses, or rather people who had spoken for the rights of the poor. So, I should say, I was very impressed with them, and I shall never forget my one year of interaction with them in prison. I learnt a lot."

1978 - Ngugi's is released from detention.

1978 - Ngugi's application to be reinstated in his position at the University of Nairobi is rejected by the university authorities. Ngugi is forced to work as a freelance writer.

[By this time, Ngugi's voice of protest in the cause of social justice had become known and respected throughout Kenya, Africa and in the world at large.]

1982 - I Will Marry When I Want, Ngugi's own translation of the Gikuyu-language play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (1980), he had written with Ngugi wa Mirii, is published.

[In this play, Ngugi has turned to writing in the Kenyan language, primarily so as to make readier contact with the common man, to whose cause he has dedicated so much of his energy and talent.

At the same time, he has been relieved of the embarrassment of denouncing colonialism and its ethnocentric assault on African cultures while himself writing exclusively in English.]

1980 - Ngugi's first novel in Gikuyu, Caithani Mutharaba-ini, is published.

1982 - Devil on the Cross, Ngugi's own translation of Caithani Mutharaba-ini, is published.

1984 - Following the unsuccessful coup in Kenya, Ngugi goes into self-imposed exile.

1984 to 1988 - Ngugi lives in the UK.

1989 - Ngugi moves to the USA where he teaches at Yale University and New York University.

Ngugi is currently Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University.

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