Prominent Kenyan Writer and Scholar of African Literature To Head New Center

Irvine, Calif., July 10, 2002 -- UC Irvine has named Ngugi wa Thiong'o as a Distinguished Professor in the School of Humanities and director of the International Center for Writing and Translation, effective July 1, 2002. The Distinguished Professor title is the highest campus-level distinction and is reserved for senior faculty who have achieved the highest levels of scholarship over the course of their careers.

A novelist, playwright and essayist, Ngugi was born in Kenya and educated in Kenya, Uganda and the United Kingdom. Ngugi is one of Africa's most accomplished and prominent writers, and his work has been translated into more than 30 languages and is recognized by many national and international awards, including the Nonino International Prize 2001, the Unesco First Prize and the Lotus Prize for literature.

Ngugi comes to UCI from New York University, where he served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Languages, professor of comparative literature and performance studies and as a guest artist in the graduate film and television program in the Tisch School of the Arts. He was the first professor to hold a joint appointment in the faculty of arts and sciences and the Tisch School. His research interests are in African and Caribbean literatures, theater and film; performance studies; and cultural and political theory.

"To have someone of Ngugi's prominence as the center's first director will bring immediate visibility and stature to our activities in support of writing and translation," said Karen Lawrence, dean of the School of Humanities. "Ngugi wa Thiong'o is a major writer and public intellectual who has helped shape crucial debates about language, culture, society and politics. He is one of the founders of modern African literature and an important theorist of postcoloniality. We are thrilled that he will help guide the development of our new center and contribute to the important debates about language and culture already occurring on UC Irvine's campus."

The UCI International Center for Writing and Translation fosters writing, translation and criticism in multilingual and international contexts. It supports writers, translators and critics from around the world through short residencies and by bringing them together for readings, performances, lectures and international conferences. It also sponsors research activities and graduate fellowships in creative nonfiction and translation. The center was founded at the School of Humanities in July 2001 through support from Glenn Schaeffer, UCI alumnus and president and CFO of Mandalay Bay Resorts. It is a partner to the International Institute of Modern Letters in Las Vegas, Nev.

"The center, as its name implies, envisions conversation among languages, cultures and disciplines as key in the emerging multicultural global community," Ngugi said. "It hopes to reflect a global vision, provide a sound intellectual grounding for that vision, stimulate writing and publishing in marginalized languages and promote translation as a means of giving visibility to genius from even the most marginalized. Given its place in the world today, English is seen as playing a different and creative role in the entire conversation: to enable and not disable.

"The International Center for Writing and Translation is therefore much more than just another academic site. It is a pioneering model for a world arising from free conversation in and among marginalized languages, and between those languages as a whole and the hitherto dominant. It is itself a vision, and I feel privileged to play a part in its evolution as a site of the possible."

Born in 1938, Ngugi became a professor at Nairobi University with the aim of promoting interest in African writers. By 1977 he declared his intention of writing novels in Gikuyu, his native language, rather than in English, to help revitalize indigenous languages. That year, he was also arrested and then detained the following year because of the political message of his popular play "I Will Marry When I Want" and his criticism of corrupt politicians and others of post-independent Kenya in the novel "Petals of Blood." At present, he publishes "Mutiiri," a journal of literature and culture written in Gikuyu.

Ngugi enjoyed success writing in English before turning to work in Gikuyu. His early works, "Weep Not Child," "The River Between" and "A Grain of Wheat" depict the conflict of cultures and the role of Christianity, English education and the increasingly oppressive treatment of the Gikuyu and other Africans whose land had been taken by colonists. In "Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature," he delineates his program for the development of an African literary and critical discourse based on African languages.

In 1982 Ngugi left Kenya to live in self-imposed exile. He was never reinstated as professor at the University of Nairobi. He taught at Yale University for several years before joining the faculty at NYU. Frequently invited to lecture for professional organizations and at universities around the world, Ngugi most recently delivered the 1996 Clarendon lecture in English at Oxford University and the 1999 Ashby lectures at Claire Hall, Cambridge University. His honors and awards include the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence, Political Conscience and Integrity (1992), the Gwendolyn Brooks Center Contributors Award for Significant Contribution to the Black Literary Arts (1994), the Fonlon-Nichols Prize (1996) and the Distinguished Africanist Award by the New York African Studies Association (1996).

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