Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer's Awakening by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o
5. Margaret MacPherson, They Built for the Future: A Chronicle of Makerere University College, 1922–1962 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1964).
6. Northcote Hall Newsletter, 1962, no. 4, p. 2. Glennie Dias, Ronnie Reddick, Bethuel Kurutu, Herman Lupogo, Emmanuel Kiwanuka, Nazareno Ngulukulu, and Paula Bernak took part in the play.
2: A Wounded Land
1. From research notes of Professor Peter Lehman, which he shared with me.
2. Karen Blixen, aka Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa (London: Penguin, 1954), 243.
3. J.-G. L., review of John C. Carothers, The African Mind in Health and Disease (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1953), in Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge et Bulletin international des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge (International Review of the Red Cross) 37, no. 443 (November 1955): 758–60, doi:10.1017 / S0035336100138304.
4. John C. Carothers, The Psychology of Mau Mau (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1954).
5. Samuel A. Cartwright, “Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” De Bow’s Review, vol. 11, New Orleans, 1851.
6. Frank Derek Corfield, The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau: An Historical Survey (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1960), presented to Parliament by the secretary of state for the colonies by command of her majesty, May 1960.
7. Hola Camp, Kenya, Report, UK Parliament, House of Commons Debate, July 27, 1959, Hansard (edited parliamentary debate transcriptions), vol. 610, columns 181–262, at 181, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1959/jul/27/hola-camp-kenya-report (accessed July 9, 2015).
8. Cited and quoted in The Guardian, April 18, 2012.
9. See the story of Good Wallace in my Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2011) and In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2015).
10. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (New York: American Book Co., 1904), Act 2, Scene 2, lines 83–84, available at Shakespeare Online, www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth_2_2.html.
3: Reds and Blacks
1. See my Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2011) and In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2015).
2. Winston Churchill, My African Journey (Toronto: William Briggs, 1909), ch. 5, pp. 88–89, https://archive.org/details/myafricanjourney00churuoft.
3. Ibid., ch. 10, p. 197.
4. Politicians tried and imprisoned with Kenyatta: Paul Ngei, Bildad Kaggia, Kũng’ũ Karumba, Fred Kubai. The fifth was Achieng Oneko, held elsewhere.
5. Aristotle, Metaphysics, tr. W.D. Ross, book 2, part 1, http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.2.ii.html.
6. Bernard de Bunsen, Adventures in Education (Kendal, UK: Titus Wilson, 1995), 68.
7. Today there are many more halls, and Northcote has been renamed Nakulabye.
8. Mitchell also governed Fiji and Kenya, in that order, in the latter place being replaced by Evelyn Baring, who declared a state of emergency in 1952.
9. Quoted in Hugh Dinwiddy, “Makerere and Development in East Africa in the Colonial Period,” paper presented at the Conference on Uganda at the University of Copenhagen, September 25–29, 1985.
10. Peter Nazareth, leader of the conquerors, told me details of the story. See also Hugh Dinwiddy in Tributes to Fred Welbourne.
11. The other actors included Bethuel Kurutu and Ben Kipkorir.
12. Peter Nazareth tells me that years later he found the play among my books in the University of Iowa Library in Iowa City in 1973, under the title The Wound in the Knee. He told the librarian the play was called The Wound in the Heart. “Oh,” he said. “The book was received just after the Wounded Knee uprising and must have affected the person listing it.”
13. E-mail to me dated Thursday, August 28, 2012.
4: Benzes, Sneakers, Frisbees, and Flags
1. John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BqXIEM9F4024ntFl7SVAjA.aspx.
2. Tom Mboya, who became a minister in Kenyatta’s independence government, was assassinated on Government Road (now Moi Avenue) in Nairobi on July 5, 1969.
3. Judith Lindfors, ed., The TEA Experience (2002).
4. Bernard de Bunsen, Adventures in Education (Kendal, UK: Titus Wilson, 1995), 114.
5. Frank Derek Corfield, The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau: An Historical Survey (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1960), presented to Parliament by the secretary of state for the colonies by command of her majesty, May 1960.
6. See my previous memoirs, Dream in a Time of War and In the House of the Interpreter.
7. F.D. Corfield, The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau (1960) ch. 2, 7
8. John C. Carothers, The Psychology of Mau Mau (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1954).
9. Corfield, Mau Mau, p. 8, n. 1.
10. Ibid., ch. 2, 9.
11. Ian Henderson, The Hunt for Kimathi (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958).
12. Ibid., ch. 2, p. 22.
13. Norman Maclean Leys, Kenya, 4th ed. (London: Frank Cass, 1973), introduction by George Shepperson, 6.
14. Elspeth Huxley, White Man’s Country: Lord Delamere and the Making of Kenya (New York: Praeger, 1967).
15. Leys, Kenya, 9.
16. Ibid., 334.
17. B. Gakonyo, Comment on Corfield (Kampala: Makerere Kikuyu Embu and Meru Students Association, 1960).
18. These include Rubadiri, Malawi, 1953–54; Ahmed Abdalla, Kenya, 1958–59; Simeon G.M. Gor, Kenya, 1959–60; Francis Lucas Nyalali, Tanzania, 1960–61; D.G. Ombati, Kenya, 1961–62; Matthew Rukikaire, Uganda, 1962–63; and E.M. Mugenzi, Uganda, 1963–64.
19. Carol Sicherman, Becoming an African University, Makerere 1922–2000 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 334.
20. Patrice Lumumba, Speech at Léopoldville, 1958, Main Currents in African History, course synopsis, Dr. Gregory Mann, Columbia University, www.columbia.edu/itc/history/mann/w3005, under Web Resources. (accessed August 13, 2015).
21. William Wordsworth, “The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement,” lines 4–5, www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174787.
6: Writing for the Money of It
1. See my Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2011) and In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (New York, Anchor: 2015).
2. See Dreams in a Time of War.
3. Ibid.
4. Mbura ura
Ngũthiĩnjĩre
Gategwa na kangĩ
Karĩ mbugi
Ng’iri! Ng’iri! Ng’iri!
7: Black Dolls and Black Masks
1. Kenya African Union (1942–1952). The 1960 KANU for Kenya African National Union was a conscious echo of the banned first.
2. Tũtirũragia gũthamio
Kana gũtwarwo njera
Kana gũtwarwo icigĩrĩra
Amu tũtigatiga gũtetera wĩyathi
Kenya nĩ bũrũri wa andũ airũ
3. See my Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2011).
4. See my In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2015).
5. Not her real name.
6. Not her real name.
7. Not his real name.
8. The Rebels was first broadcast by UBS on April 6, 1962, at 10:00 p.m.
9. Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier, eds., The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, 4th ed. (New York: Penguin, 1999).
10. Ibid., 316.
11. Léopold Sédar Senghor, “Black Woman,” http://allpoetry.com/poem/8594637-Black-Woman-by-Leopold-Sedhar-Senghor.
12. Modernist Africana Poetry of the Americas, course synopsis, Prof. Brenda Marie Osbey, Brown University, Two Poems by Léon Damas, http://osbey.tripod.com/mapa/damas.html.
13. Taifa means “nation” in Kiswahili.
8: Transition and That Letter from Paris
1. I am indebted to Peter Nazareth for this biographical information. Peter and Rajat went to the
2. Later he would change it to Eski’a.
3. David Rubadiri, “Stanley Meets Mutesa,” http://allpoetry.com/poem/10502019-Stanley-Meets-Mutesa-by-David-Rubadiri.
9: Boxers and Black Hermits
1. Gulzar Kanji to me, August 28, 2012.
2. These were John Agard, Rhoda Kayanja, Frieda Kase, Lydia Lubwama, Peter Kĩnyanjui, Bethuel Kurutu, Goody Godo, John Moyo, Cecelia Powell, and Susie Ooman.
3. Among her schoolmates were Bahadur Tejani, Chitra Neogy (sister to Rajat Neogy of Transition magazine), and the charismatic playwright and actress Elvania Zirimu née Namukwaya, whose support and generosity and long hours spent talking about many things Susie remembers.
4. Generally there were very few white European students in the Makerere of the time. Peter Nazareth reminds me that there was a Mr. Brian Austin-Ward doing a general degree but with English as his three subjects.
10: Pages, Stages, Spaces
1. Rudyard Kipling, “If—,” www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175772.
2. Worth twelve dollars today.
3. See my In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (New York, Anchor, 2015).
4. John Newton, lyrics (1779), and Alexander Reinagle, music (1836), “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/s/hsweetnj.htm.
5. See Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1981; Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 2006) and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams: Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa (1998; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003).
11: Coal, Rubber, Silver, Gold, and New Flags
1. John F. Kennedy, “Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, June 3, 1957,” www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/Syracuse-University_19570603.aspx.
2. We sent Nyerere
On a mission for Freedom
Kenya Uganda Tanganyika
We help one another
3. “Uganda: The White Man’s Hangover,” The World, Time 83, no. 1 (January 3, 1964), http://content.time.com/magazine/article/0,9171,940778,00.html.
4. Joseph Conrad and Robert Kimbrough, Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources Criticism, 3rd edition (New York: Norton, 1988), ch. 1, 32–3.
5. Ibid., ch. 1, 10
6. Ibid.
7. Abridged translation without repetitions: Munyau raise the flag. It’s three colors. Red is our blood; black is our skin. And green, our land. Raise the flag; raise it high.
8. Norman Maclean Leys, Kenya, 4th ed. (London: Frank Cass, 1973), introduction by George Shepperson, 7.
12: Working for the Nation
1. African neighborhoods in Nairobi.
2. Now Moi Road, and Sans Chique is gone.
3. See my Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2011).
4. Ibid.
5. See my In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir (New York: Anchor, 2015).
6. Published title of “The Black Messiah.”
14: A Hell of Paradise
1. Hugh Dinwiddy, letter to a person he calls “Dear Charles,” dated New Year’s Day 1997.
2. Isaiah 11:6, 9 (King James Version).
3. Susan N. Kiguli, Zuhause treibt in der Ferne: Gedichte [Home Floats in the Distance: Poems], in German and English (Heidelberg: Verlag Das Wunderhorn, 2012).
Photograph Sources
Sir Bunsen with the Queen Mother at Makerere graduation, February 20, 1959: courtesy of Makerere University, Makerere University Library– Africana Section
Red-gowned students in front of the Makerere University’s Main Building: courtesy of Makerere University
Scene from Macbeth: courtesy of Nat Frothingham
Uganda Argus, “A Courageous Macbeth by Makerere Society,” November 1961: clipping provided by Nat Frothingham
Penpoint collage by Barbara Caldwell from copies of Penpoint: courtesy of Makerere University Library via Mr. Charles Ssekitoleko from the Africana Section of the Main Library
Nyambura, 1960: photo provided by Ngũgĩ’s son Kimunya wa Ngũgĩ
Njinjũ, Ngũgĩ’s younger brother: photo provided by Kimunya wa Ngũgĩ
A collage by Barbara Caldwell of As I See It and Commentary articles from Sunday Nation / Daily Nation written by Ngũgĩ: articles provided by the Nation librarian via Peter Kimani
Bethuel Kurutu, Njuguna wa Kimunya, and Ngũgĩ in front of Makerere University’s Main Building: from Ngũgĩ’s private collection
Actors in The Black Hermit. Pat Creole-Rees and John Agard are in the top left corner: from Ngũgĩ’s private collection
Actors in The Black Hermit. Cecelia Powell, John Agard, and Bethuel Kurutu, in black, are in the middle: from Ngũgĩ’s private collection
Scene from The Black Hermit with John and Susie: courtesy of Susie Tharu
Ngũgĩ with Hilary Ng’weno: from Ngũgĩ’s private collection; photo taken by Bernth Lindfors
Ngũgĩ interviewing Kenyatta and Odinga for the Nation at Gatundu: from Ngũgĩ’s private collection
Weep Not, Child signing: courtesy of Bernth Lindfors
Poster for The Black Hermit by Glen Dias: redrawn from memory
First British edition (1964) of Weep Not, Child: courtesy of Wikipedia
Author photo from Weep Not, Child: from Ngũgĩ’s private collection
Collage by Barbara Caldwell of articles about and by Ngũgĩ in the Makererean and Transition: articles from the Makerere University Archives with thanks to Mr. Charles Ssekitoleko; Makererean and Black Hermit articles with thanks to the Africana Section of the Main Library; articles from Transition with thanks to Peter Nazareth
The Duke of Edinburgh stands beside Jomo Kenyatta as Kenya regains its “independence” in 1963: image from AFP/Getty Images
About the Author
One of the leading African writers and scholars at work today, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1938. He is the author of A Grain of Wheat; Weep Not, Child; and Petals of Blood. He is currently distinguished professor in the School of Humanities and the director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine. He has been nominated for the Man Booker International Prize.
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Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o, Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer's Awakening