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NGUGI WA THIONG'O

CLARKE

Transcending the contempt of whites, their own initial contempt for other blacks, and the complex charges of aggression and self hatred which their exile from all easy relationships produced, such men won through to the most complete version of humanism in our time.  It is thanks to them (and his warm discussions here of the novels of George Lamming show that he would acknowledge it) that Mr. Ngugi can firmly assert, 'To create a religion of skin color is to despair of a solution for social injustice,' while urging that the black West Indian must discover

not only his color and race, and claim them
with pride, but also his class-and seek
solidarity with the exploited millions on the
islands and throughout the world."

This book has a special importance for the American student of African culture and black history and social thought.  This is a new voice and he is not crying in the wilderness.  He is being heard.  The writer George Lamming has said, in effect, that before Africa can emerge politically and intellectually, there will have to be a generation of Africans trained by other Africans.  In my opinion, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o will be part of the generation that will be trained and will subsequently help to train others.

The book is divided into three main sections.  The first one on culture deals with the role of African culture in African liberation, and in the preparation of the African mind to believe in the ultimate destiny of the African people and to internalize the fact that no one except an African must be in charge of this destiny.  He deals with the concept of Negritude as a movement that is a cultural phenomenon with a political facet.  In addressing himself tooth's concept that seemed to have risen and fallen before it was properly understood, he sees Negritude as a form of African awareness and intellectual nationalism, and it is only one of a number of concepts fighting for acceptance in the market place of African ideas.  In his essay, "Toward a National Culture," he is in the 20th Century, going over a lot of ground that the great Caribbean writer and benefactor of West Africa, Edward W. Blyden, went over so well in the 19th Century, especially in his book African Life and Customs.

Dr. Blyden, almost a century before the African independence explosion, was reminding Africans that their culture and customs are worth preserving, and that there is no way to secure their future until they see value in their paths.  Dr. Blyden spent most of his years in Africa trying to rescue these values from the misinterpretation

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