Ngugi wa Thiong’o one, of the world’s renowned anti-colonial and anti-racist writers and activists, spoke yesterday evening in the Fine Arts Auditorium. He touched on the topic of scholars in a post-colonial world during the Comparative Ethnic Studies Speaker Series. Thiong’o has spent the last 22 years in forced exile from his native land of Kenya, following a year of imprisonment for forming a theater in conjunction with local peasants. He has become famous throughout the globe from his films, novels and various teachings on the nature of colonialism and African history. He is also a distinguished professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. His most famous work, “Decolonizing the Mind,” is widely renowned as a manifesto of decolonization, promoting mental decolonization and self-discovery, and used the ideas of “turning writing into fighting” and using “words as weapons.” Thiong’o spoke about his early novels and the meanings behind his stories of life during the British colonization of Kenya, the forced adoption of English in Africa and his experiences during his life in Kenya. During his forced exile, he examined the effects colonization of Africa on African language, history and life. “Colonization, which followed the heels of of the abolishment of the slave trade was just another forced method of self-alienation,” he said. Thiong’o attracted a large crowd to the Fine Arts Auditorium, filling up all available seats.

The CES Speaker Series will be hosting another speaker Thursday Gary Okihiro, a specialist in Asian-American studies and Southern Africa, will lecture at 4:15 p.m. in the CUE Room 202.