SOURCE: DeLombard, Jeannine. English Postcoloniality: Literatures from Around the World, Radhika Mohanram and Gita Rajan, pp. 63-76. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.

In the following essay, DeLombard uses the writing and critical career of Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o as a representative example of postcoloniality and its relationship to the development of East African literature.

Addressing the topic of postcoloniality and its relationship to East African literature, one immediately faces a dilemma. Such a discussion must acknowledge in some depth the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o—East Africa's most celebrated author and one of the continent's most outspoken and controversial critics of neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism—without ignoring or slighting the work of other, lesser known but equally important authors from Ngugi's own Kenya, as well as neighboring Tanzania and Uganda. This essay will seek to resolve this dilemma by demonstrating how a crucial period in Ngugi's career as...