Overview

• He died on May 28, 2025, at the age of 87 in Atlanta, his daughter announced on Facebook, prompting tributes from Kenyan leaders and writers worldwide.
• Ngũgĩ began his literary career writing in English but in the late 1970s abandoned it to write exclusively in Gikuyu, challenging colonial language hierarchies.
• His 1977 play Ngaahika Ndeenda led to his imprisonment in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, where he drafted Devil on the Cross on toilet paper.
• He spent 22 years in exile in Britain and the United States following threats from President Daniel arap Moi’s government and endured a violent home invasion during a brief 2004 return to Kenya.
• He held teaching positions at Yale, New York University and the University of California, Irvine and inspired a new generation of writers through his advocacy for linguistic decolonization.