On Decolonizing Literature: In Conversation with Senghor and Ngugi
“Farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my writings,” says Ngugi wa Thiong’ in the introduction to his text Decolonizing The Mind. In need of a metaphor, I think of rain, as it is raining today. When it rains, we know we can’t go out barefoot. We know of the existence and presence of water as an agent that can cause discomfort, yet even with this knowledge and with the right precautions, occasionally (if not frequently), our shoes get drenched. The water seeps into the sock and is absorbed by our feet, and before we know it, we are walking around dripping, leaving a trail behind us. This is what colonization does; the construct and power over marginalized cultures and languages seeps through. There comes a time in a writer's life, when we question the way we are using language, because inevitably– as Ngugi says, “language carries, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in our world.”
Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a Kenyan author and scholar whose work extensively looks at the struggles of the African experience in fighting for independence and cultural and personal identity. His experience in education began at a missionary school where Western culture was highly influencing his ideas and introduction to literature. When furthering his studies in Uganda for English Literature and Drama, he came to the realization, or better said, it struck him how influential and completely authoritarian Western culture and, more interestingly, the English language is. In the 1960s Ngugi became part of the movement for Kenyan independence and therefore made significant decisions about his craft, career, and mindset on colonialism, resistance, oppression, and this idea of “decolonizing the mind”. This idea does something important: connects the weight that language has on our identity but more importantly the ways in which we subconsciously, as oppressed peoples and marginalized communities, forget that this is not the norm. Amongst the decisions he made in order to start the process of his own decolonization (cultural/spiritual), he chose to take back his name Ngugi wa Thiong’o, instead of his Westernized name James Ngugi and this is where he says farewell to the English language and goes back to writing in native Gikuyu for his craft (Britannica, 2024).
I am interested in Africa, particularly because of its diverse languages. For context, Ngugi talks about the decision among European countries in the 19th century to separate the continent and colonies among different cultures, peoples, and, more importantly, languages. The result was that African countries, as colonies, “came to be defined and to define themselves in terms of the languages of Europe: English-speaking, French-speaking or Portuguese-speaking African countries” (5). As a result, we get an Africa built on colonies whose native language became intrinsically intertwined with colonizing tongues, and therefore, we understand the continent as having a wide array of languages/dialects. It is no secret that poetry is the language of the marginalized: “poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary awareness and demand, the implementation of that freedom” (Lorde, 1985). For decades and centuries, people have attempted to reclaim power or call for action through this means of communication and self-expression.
Ngugi, as a novelist, makes these conclusions allegorically, whereas as an essayist, he writes more explicitly on the ways in which the English language holds superiority over diverse creative individuals, or at least is made out to do just that. I found his thinking and actions to be of great interest when looking at Africa under colonial rule and the extensive literature that has emerged in the last sixty to seventy years. Furthermore, I am interested in this moment, the moment of epiphany that our minds suffer from the colonial past and its inevitable existence in our present. I believe this is a conversation that is extremely important in decolonizing efforts, specifically in art, and in the preservation of native tongues and cultures.
With this as a framework and reference, I would like to look at Senghor, whose work might have deeply influenced Ngugi in his thinking. Senghor's poetry is useful as it started the movement in which Ngugi was allowed to think and respond to this colonization of the mind and creative spirit. Léopold Senghor was a renowned poet and philosopher elected the first President of Senegal after gaining independence in 1960. Important to note is the shared experience here with Ngugi, Senghor at the age of 13 is exposed to the French language in a Catholic mission school. In the 1930s, he moved to France to pursue literature at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he would become dear friends with poets, philosophers, and future politicians like himself. Moving to France and finding community, Senghor quickly became affiliated with Aimé Césaire and Léon Damas. Together, they would create the Négritude movement. In Paris, which had become a hub for creatives and had a diverse art scene and culture, they founded this movement to highlight the diverse experiences of African people under colonial rule and globally and bring forth a commentary and conversation, more so a critique of imperialism. A wide range of artists, both from French colonies and the Caribbean, contributed to the movement in an effort to demand equality and advocate for the acknowledgment of African culture. Out of this movement, we get art that is culturally charged and intrinsically intertwined with modern ideas, including those of decolonization, return, and repatriation (Tate, n.d.).
With Senghor as one of the leading thinkers behind this movement, with the idea of negritude as this sort of homecoming and celebration of African culture, he writes about the experience of exile. I want to look at one of his most famous poems, ‘Night in Sine’, originally written in French and translated to English by Melvin Dixon. Senghor writes this poem in response to this exile, this feeling that he was somewhat stripped away from his heritage and the beauty of such. The first two lines of the poem interest me as there is a connection here to the way Ngugi talks about Africa in his text: “It seems it is the fate of Africa to have her destiny always decided around conference tables in the metropolises of the western world.” In his poem, Senghor regards Africa as a motherly figure, the image of womanhood, saying, “Woman, place your soothing hands upon my brow/Your hands softer than fur.” This is a cultural understanding of the land as being capable of nurturing and having the care and traits of women. Furthermore, I am interested in the way Senghor talks about silence, more specifically, the way he refers to the silence this country possesses. Colonization silenced many cultures, but here he talks of a “rhythmic silence (that cradles),” making it much more apparent that the culture, however lively in the day, has been taught and conditioned to give into this mode of being silent.
Senghor writes in a way in which the reader is visually and physically there, placing us under nature and starry nights. With very poignant imagery regarding the fate of Africa and its inhabitants, he gives us this sense of loss, grief, and displacement. Here, Senghor is having a moment, similar to Ngugi, where he questions the exile we have been conditioned to endure, the cleansing of cultures rich in so much more for the “superior” Westernized life. While the tone of the poem, sentiment, and story is one of loss– Senghor is advocating for the return of those exiled to their culture, to lean into it, to let themselves be held by the comfort of ancestors who endured and fallen to the same ideas; Let me breathe the odor of our Dead let me gather/ And speak with their living voices, let me learn to live/ Before plunging deeper than the diver/ Into the great depths of sleep.
This poem opens up about the rage and anger of those exiled towards the imperialist belief of “taming” Africa as if it were some beast. Senghor is responding to his own reflection on the loss of his childhood and ancestral connection to Africa due to his exile and life in Paris. Senghor is paving the way for a larger conversation and response to colonization and its attempt to silence the beauty of a continent and its people and culture. This poem is a celebration of African culture, a poem with beautiful details and imagery of the land and its people. It celebrates and brings forth African ancestry and invites those reading to let themselves live (question this life) before diving deeper into this silence. This poem is at the core of what the Négritude movement was, yet it also raises questions about the contradictory nature of decolonization in between worlds. In France, it appears he was a member promoting the recognition of African culture and language, yet “in Senegal, he became a founding member of Francophonie to promote French as the language of universal civilization” (Coulmas, 2016). Like the movement itself, Senghor, in his politics, raised questions about the idea that colonizing languages was the path to an international stage. While some of the reasoning behind this decision remains true and is truthful, like the result in national unity, international relations, and education was beneficial, one can't help but wonder if this is a bit contradictory.
I would argue that in our highly globalized world, there is no such thing as total “sovereignty”. Yet decolonizing efforts make it possible to restabilize cultures that are somewhat decaying as the Western world comes into contact with and continues to dominate the world. At the start of this paper, I said that this (colonialism) seeps through, inevitably. Yet, both Senghor and Ngugi continue and author conversations to make us aware that our feet are drenched. They both rewrote and reconstructed modern-day Africa. Subjugation should not extend to our present if we have created a collective consciousness where Imperialism can no longer reign. Decolonizing the mind starts with language but ends in spirit. As long as we can make this connection in our present literary atmosphere and continue to salvage our respective heritage, we can reconnect with what was taken but not entirely lost.
Coulmas, Florian. (2016). 'Léopold Sédar Senghor', Guardians of Language: Twenty Voices Through History. Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198736523.003.002
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Ngugi wa thiong’o. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ngugi-wa-Thiongo
Lorde, A. (1985). Poetry Is Not a Luxury. essay. Retrieved from https://makinglearning.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/poetry-is-not-a-luxury-audre-lorde.pdf.
Ngugi, M. W. M. (2019). Mukoma wa Ngugi: What decolonizing the mind means Today. Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/mukoma-wa-ngugi-what-decolonizing-the-mind-means-today/
Senghor, L. (1990). “Night Of Sine.” Oeuvre Poetique.
Tate. (n.d.). Négritude. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/n/negritude#:~:text=Introduction,surrealism%20and%20the%20Harlem%20Renaissance.
Thiong’o, N. wa. (1981). Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. https://marxistnkrumaistforum.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/wa-thiong_o-decolonising-the-mind-the-politics-of-language-in-african-literature.pdf
