Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Decoloniser of the mind
Jenny Farrell pays tribute to the work of the great African writer NGUGI WA THIONG’O and his incisive Marxist analysis of the continent, past and present
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
KENYAN-BORN writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who turned 80 this year, is nothing if not prolific. His first major novel Weep Not Child (1964) was followed by The River Between with its background of the Mau Mau war of independence, which he had witnessed, and A Grain of Wheat (1967).
He has gone on to write many plays, fiction, essays and memoirs, with his 1986 book Decolonising the Mind about the constructive role of language in Africa's national cultures, history and identity arguably his most significant.
For 10 years from 1977, Ngugi was a lecturer in the English literature department at the University of Nairobi where, to reflect a change of focus from English to world literature, he campaigned for the change of its name to simply the literature department.
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