September 11, 2026

From Now On

This book, Decolonising the Mind, is my farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my writings. From now on it is Gikuyu and Kiswahili all the way.

Ngũgĩ wrote this line in the preface to Decolonising the Mind, published in 1986, after years of building an international reputation as a novelist writing in English. He had already taken the harder first step, drafting Caitaani Mutharaba-ini on toilet paper while held in political detention, writing in Gikuyu when he had every reason to stop. This preface makes the break official and public, a line drawn in the sand rather than a quiet drift. It shows that beginning again can be a single stated decision, not a vague hope to someday change.