With the announcement of the winner of this year's Nobel prize for literature due later this week, Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o has emerged as a late favourite at the bookmakers.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (born January 5, 1938[1]) is a Kenyan author, formerly working in English and now working in Gĩkũyũ. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, essays and scholarship, criticism and children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal, Mutiiri. Ngugi went into exile following his release from a Kenyan prison in 1977; living in the United States, he taught at Yale University for some years, and has since also taught at New York University, with a dual professorship in Comparative Literature and Performance Studies, and the University of California, Irvine.
"The reason why Ngugi is the greatest writer to have come from East and Central Africa is because, like Peter Abrahams in South Africa and Chinua Achebe in West Africa, he writes about big subjects."[2] "The three writers are for literature what Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela are for politics."[2] It has been noted that "it is very difficult for writers like Meja Mwangi, Francis D. Imbuga and Jared Angira to enjoy Ngugi's prominence, because the paths they have chosen are smaller. They do not directly draw from history."[2]
more at ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng%C5%A9g%C4%A9_wa_Thiong%27o
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