SOURCE: "The Language of African Literature: A Writer's Testimony," in Research in African Studies, Vol. 23, No. I, Spring 1992, pp. 153-57.

In the following essay, Saro-Wiwa justifies his choice of writing in English rather than any of the various Nigerian languages.

I was born to Ogoni parents at Bori on the northern fringes of the delta of the Niger during the Second World War. I grew up speaking one of the three Ogoni languages—Khana, my mother-tongue—and listening to and telling folk tales in that language.

When I went to primary school in 1947, I was taught in my mother-tongue during the first two years. During the other six years of the primary school course, the teaching was done in English, which soon imprinted itself on my mind as the language of learning. Khana was the language of play, and it appeared on the class time-table once or twice...