Ngugi wa Thiong’o wrestles with the devil

“THE way I take it, a writer is a part of the intellectual community, and the way I define an intellectual is a worker in ideas.

“Since intellectuals, as well as writers are working in ideas, it is of course very important that they try to articulate a world view which is consistent with the values of liberation . . . writers and artists, both consciously and in practice, should be on the side of liberation, because art assumes freedom” (Ngugi wa Thiong’o cited in Kumar, 2001: 170).

Art, indeed, assumes freedom; the freedom of expression and to determine how one should live, and not how one should avoid living. It is this that constitutes liberation in view of the role of the artist in society.

Often, the separation is not clear, on whether the liberty to express one’s self constitutes freedom in the broader sense of the word, for expression is one thing, and facing the consequences is another issue. It is this thin line that artists frequently cross to reach out to their audience — the people, in an attempt to articulate their gagged voices.

The artist is not a dealer of cards, but he/ she is only too conscious of how life has a way of dealing the same cards from its deck to the same people, with corresponding results; and awarding the same trophies for both losers and winners.

As an artist-intellectual, Ngugi wa Thiong’o has often crossed what others would call the red line because of his beliefs and the desire to uplift the feeble and vulnerable.

In his latest book “Wrestling with the Devil” (2018), the writer revisits his detention at Kenya’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. The prison memoir begins 30 minutes before his release from prison on December 12 1978, after almost 12 months. Before unravelling the reasons for his incarceration, the artist-intellectual takes the reader into the claustrophobia that comes with imprisonment; all forms of caging that emanate from the physical confinement within enclosures; be they psychological, emotional, physiological or mental.

“Mine is cell 16 in a prison block enclosing 18 other political prisoners. Here I have no name. I am just a number in a file: K6,77,” Wa Thiong’o intimates.

Drawing the reader into the tiny space that creativity rewards him with, he highlights the colour blindness of oppression in such a way that even shames the metaphorical devil pervading his people’s experiences.

He writes: “The menacing bootsteps come nearer. I know that the prowling guard cannot enter my cell — it is always double-locked and the keys, in turn, locked inside a box, which promptly at five o’clock is taken away by the corporal on duty to a safe somewhere outside the double walls.”

But who really is responsible for this suffering of a fellow human being and why? It is this that makes Ngugi wa Thiong’o a champion of the African story of toil, expectation and expunged hope.

The reversal of roles that he explores in his works, especially “I Will Marry When I Want” (1977), “Devil on the Cross” (1980), “Matigari” (1986), “Petals of Blood” (1977) and “A Grain of Wheat” (1967), is rooted in the fact that Man is inherently oppressive, brutal and avaricious regardless of creed, ethnicity and/ or socio-cultural background.

In “Wrestling with the Devil”, Wa Thiong’o goes beyond the restrictions that come with imprisonment, to capture the resilience that comes with it, especially for an artist. ◆ Read the full review on www.herald.co.zw