About Me
Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of the novel Nairobi Heat (Penguin, SA 2009), an anthology of poetry titled Hurling Words at Consciousness (AWP, 2006) and is a political columnist for the BBC's Focus on Africa Magazine. He was short listed for the Caine Prize for African writing in 2009 and for the Penguin African Writing Prize in 2010. His fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Wasafiri and African Writing, and his poetry in the New York Quarterly, Tin House Magazine, Brick Magazine and the anthologies, Satellite Convulsions (Tin House, 2008), Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa (Flipped Eye Press,2006), Step into a World: A Global Anthology of New Black Writing (John Wiley & Sons, 2001).
A former co-editor of Pambazuka News, his columns have appeared in the Guardian, International Herald Tribune, Chimurenga, Los Angeles Times, South African Labour Bulletin, and Business Daily Africa, and he has been a guest on Democracy Now, Al Jazeera and the BBC World Service. His essays have appeared in the World Literature Review, the Black Commentator, Progressive Magazine and Radical History Review. He has forthcoming work in Callaloo and the St. Petersburg Review. He is the son of World renowned African writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
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African Feminism and the dilemma of Class
From the quietness of the large crowd gathered in a circle, it was hard to tell what was happening. It was only when my elder brother and I got in…
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How Waterloo was named
Napoleon, our halved hero found it decreed by the oracle
cow dung, brittle bones and a witch doctor that he be in envy
of the black nose… -
Recipe: How to Become an Immigrant and an Exile
Listen. Do you hear ghosts? Connect them to the sound of a canoe
on Indian Ocean. Listen to that tape of familiar beats that has weathered
foreign seasons. Sukus found in Salsa. Fela Kuti meets Masekela
in Appalachia. Do not inhale the coal fumes. Hold a memory.Commit sins of transportation. Bite the past. Spit broken teeth
and colored blood that will chart global awareness. Learn
to say fuck without flinching. Seduce anarchy of the mind and try
to order schizophrenia in realms just outside the touch of your black hand. -
Cleveland in Translation
Immigrants are forced out of their native lands by great upheavals: war, famine, oppression. But in our host countries, those larger issues become abstract. We miss small, practical things that function as metaphors for home.
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Hunting words with my father
For Baba’s 70th One morning I burst into my father’s study and I said “when I grow up, I too want to hunt, I want to hunt words, and giraffes,…
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Those who help themselves
“In cities such as Nairobi and Cape Town, middle and upper-classes see it not just convenient to buy bloodless and colorless meat at the supermarket, but also as a sign of having arrived. No more going to the rural areas to buy fresh produce, or the market. Yet, the relationship between the city and the rural is symbiotic. Small farmers sell their fresh produce to the rural or city market…”
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African Feminism and the dilemma of Class
Posted on January 27, 2011 | 4 CommentsFrom the quietness of the large crowd gathered in a circle, it was hard to tell what was happening. It was only when my elder brother and I got in... -
How Waterloo was named
Posted on November 21, 2010 | No CommentsNapoleon, our halved hero found it decreed by the oracle cow dung, brittle bones and a witch doctor that he be in envy of the black nose... -
Recipe: How to Become an Immigrant and an Exile
Posted on November 10, 2010 | 1 CommentListen. Do you hear ghosts? Connect them to the sound of a canoe on Indian Ocean. Listen to that tape of familiar beats that has weathered foreign seasons. Sukus found in Salsa. Fela Kuti meets Masekela in Appalachia. Do not inhale the coal fumes. Hold a memory. Commit sins of transportation. Bite the past. Spit broken teeth and colored blood that will chart global awareness. Learn to say fuck without flinching. Seduce anarchy of the mind and try to order schizophrenia in realms just outside the touch of your black hand.
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African Feminism and the dilemma of Class
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Inside looking out
How Waterloo was named
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Inside looking out
Recipe: How to Become an Immigrant and an Exile
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