Subject to Citizen: In Weep Not, Child, writer was born

Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o speaks at the University of Bayreuth on May 5, 2014. The renowned writer arrived in Nairobi on Monday night for two weeks of celebrations to mark 50 years since his first novel was published. PHOTO | COURTESY | PETER KOLB

What you need to know:

  • She could not see it; she felt it in her trembling hands. She had moulded my world in ways that only I could understand: she had made me want to become a dream weaver.

  • There was no formal launch but a date for the release. My very first interview as the first East African novelist in English was by John de Villiers, a colleague at the Nation.

  • He reminded me of the incident with Jack Ensoll at the Sunday Post three years earlier when he told me my future lay between hard covers.

It’s difficult to capture in words the sensation at seeing an advanced copy of my first novel to be published: Weep Not, Child. I rushed home to show it to my mother, Wanjiku, my partner, Nyambura, and my immediate brothers and sisters.

The kids were too young to care, but I showed them anyway. My mother wanted to know if that was the best I could have done and was satisfied when I told her I had done my best.

I didn’t know how the neighbours would take it: the image of a successful graduate was a black gown, a flat cap with tassels, and a rolled something in his hands, and not that of a guy in regular wear holding a book in his hands, claiming authorship. But they received it well, and though they could not read it, they touched it reverently.

My father’s family now lived in Gitithia, where they had moved in 1962. They were part of the many landless people being settled under the new Independence dispensation.

It was some miles away but I went there, book in hand, to show it to Wabia, particularly.

She was my half-sister, disadvantaged in every possible way, but had remained optimistic about life, dwelling in the world of songs and stories, becoming the collective memory of the community. I grew up with her stories, the only one who could conjure them up in day time.

She could not see it; she felt it in her trembling hands. She had moulded my world in ways that only I could understand: she had made me want to become a dream weaver.

There was no formal launch but a date for the release. My very first interview as the first East African novelist in English was by John de Villiers, a colleague at the Nation.

He reminded me of the incident with Jack Ensoll at the Sunday Post three years earlier when he told me my future lay between hard covers.

Obviously, Ensoll must have talked about his prediction to the journalistic fraternity. Otherwise how would de Villiers have known about what had transpired in the privacy of an editorial office? Yes, I recalled the assessment. I had hated it for I needed a job today more than a tomorrow in hard covers, but now, I was able to value his uncanny insight.

A Nairobi bookshop, managed by Marjorie Oludhe MacGoye, I think, arranged for me to sign books. I could not believe that people would actually line up to have me sign their books.

Soon, I received artwork for the paperback edition of Weep Not, Child, which meant it would soon follow the hardback. The publishers, Heinemann Educational Books, had commissioned the painting from the Ugandan artist, Eli Kyeyune. 

A WEEK AFTER THE DRAMA

A week after the drama of signing books and sitting for interviews, I heard from London, again. I had passed my BA Honours in English in the Upper Second Division. Bahadur Tejani, one of the animating spirits in the production of The Black Hermit, and I were the only two in that coveted category that year.

I became a writer, which, to quite a few people, meant owner of books, and wherever I went, members of the new political class would ask me to give them copies. It took some time for some people to realise that an author did not actually own the books that bore his name.

Chemchemi Cultural Centre, founded by Ezekiel Mphahlele, was one of the first to invite me to read and talk about the book. This was very gratifying: Chemchemi had become a place where you aspiring writers gathered under the tutelage of Eski’a Mphahlele. Mphahlele also travelled widely in schools to stimulate interest in writing among the youth, and I was glad to be part of that effort and also a living example that it was possible.

One day Pumwani Secondary School invited me to speak to the Form Four Class about writing.  Khaki-clad boys, behind dilapidated desks, packed the room. I could hardly believe my eyes. In their midst, similarly clad in khaki, sharing a desk, sat Mr E Carey Francis. But for his age and white skin, he could have been one of the boys. I had completely forgotten that he had retired as principal of Alliance High School in 1962, only to become an ordinary teacher in Pumwani.

Way back in the 1920s he would use his free time to work with the children of British poor, in defiance of what was expected of a Cambridge don. He then extended his services to the poor of Africa, first as headmaster of Maseno Primary School for 10 years before his stint as principal of Alliance for 24 years. Now, in 1964, he was back among the lowly in defiance of what was expected of the retired principal of the most outstanding school in the country.

HANDS RAISED

I was really glad to see him because our last confrontation in Makerere had left a nasty taste in me. Among the hands raised, when it came to question time, were those of Carey Francis.

Nothing about missionaries, Christianity, priests or imperialism. He wanted me to expand on what moved me to write. What tips could I pass on to the intending writer? How did a writer balance the demands of his imagination and those of the political moment? I pondered the questions. The only real loyalty a writer has is to their imagination. The writer must find the time for her, obey her when she calls, and exert the sinews of their being to her.

In an entry on November 5 in the diary I had started and then abandoned, I had written down an observation on Virginia Wolfe’s work habits.

Just learnt that Virginia Wolf would write one passage 15 times. Seems my fault. I am so impatient.

Today I have reduced this to a formula that I tell any who asks me for tips: Write, write, write and write again and you’ll get it right. Writing is work, is devotion. But was that really different from any other calling? Even a missionary calling?

Right from his arrival in Kenya, Carey Francis was always aware that he was preparing the leaders of tomorrow, although he may have imagined the future as one of enlightened English Empire.

In one respect, his vision of moulding tomorrow’s leaders had been fulfilled. The Independence Cabinet and administration was packed with graduates of Alliance.

But how many of the new post-colonial elite were going to give themselves fully to the lowly of all the communities the way he had done? Already some of his pupils, ministers and permanent secretaries in independent Kenya, were beginning to demand their five per cent from the people they had sworn to serve.

They were nicknamed Messrs Five Per Cent. If I wrote another novel, what would I say about these five-per-centers vis-a-vis people in the streets?

I answered his questions as well as I could. A writer‘s quest was truth; his guide, social conscience. But I should have added that reference to Virginia Wolf’s writing ethic: writing a single passage 15 times!

With the publication of Weep Not, Child, I now had yet another way of framing my college times. I entered Makerere in the 1959 academic year, a colonial subject, and left in 1963, a citizen of an independent Kenya. Between them, a writer was born.  I had a novel out, Weep Not, Child, a second, The River Between, in the pipeline; a three-act play, The Black Hermit; two one-act plays; eight short stories; and over sixty pieces of journalism in newspapers and magazines.

Most important, I left Makerere with the fire to weave dreams still burning strong in my heart. For me, Weep Not, Child, was just the beginning.

I had many more rivers to cross and mountains to climb before I would truly accept that I was a writer!

 

This is it is an excerpt from Prof Ngugi’s forthcoming memoir, The Birth of a Dream Weaver, to be published by East African Educational Publishers.