Literary giant, intellectual, and dissident Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o passed away on May 28, 2025. He leaves us with a mountain of ideas filed away in hundreds of essays, books, lectures and conversations.
Please note that while Ngugi's son made an accusation, all his other children responded publicly with an immediately denial, and the charge was unfounded enough that al-Jazeera retracted an article by a guest columnist that highlighted the charge. It's important not to assume any accusation is automatically credible. We owe Ngugi and everyone full due diligence before repeating such charges, especially when there is no corroborating evidence and the alleged victim's own words - in this case his then wife's in published interviews - rebuts it.
Thanks for your comments and for your defense of Ngugi. If you read my entire essay, you'll see that I deeply value Ngugi and his work, and that his passing was a terrible, shocking loss for me. Despite abuse allegations remaining unproven, it cast a shadow over Ngugi's legacy and I simply stated that the mourning felt fraught because the thought entered mine and many of my friends/colleagues' minds. Secondly, there is no way to do due diligence when the person being spoken about (Nyambura) was no more but digging out her old interviews and working extra hard to prove that Mukoma is lying somehow won't quite serve as proof either. It is very rare to see flagrant and unwavering admissions of abuse from victims even as we near almost a decade of the MeToo movement. We will simply never know and sadly, we are left to making our own calculations. -- Bhakti Shringarpure
Please note that while Ngugi's son made an accusation, all his other children responded publicly with an immediately denial, and the charge was unfounded enough that al-Jazeera retracted an article by a guest columnist that highlighted the charge. It's important not to assume any accusation is automatically credible. We owe Ngugi and everyone full due diligence before repeating such charges, especially when there is no corroborating evidence and the alleged victim's own words - in this case his then wife's in published interviews - rebuts it.
Please note that while Ngugi's son made an accusation, all his other children responded publicly with an immediately denial, and the charge was unfounded enough that al-Jazeera retracted an article by a guest columnist that highlighted the charge. It's important not to assume any accusation is automatically credible. We owe Ngugi and everyone full due diligence before repeating such charges, especially when there is no corroborating evidence and the alleged victim's own words - in this case his then wife's in published interviews - rebuts it.
Thanks for your comments and for your defense of Ngugi. If you read my entire essay, you'll see that I deeply value Ngugi and his work, and that his passing was a terrible, shocking loss for me. Despite abuse allegations remaining unproven, it cast a shadow over Ngugi's legacy and I simply stated that the mourning felt fraught because the thought entered mine and many of my friends/colleagues' minds. Secondly, there is no way to do due diligence when the person being spoken about (Nyambura) was no more but digging out her old interviews and working extra hard to prove that Mukoma is lying somehow won't quite serve as proof either. It is very rare to see flagrant and unwavering admissions of abuse from victims even as we near almost a decade of the MeToo movement. We will simply never know and sadly, we are left to making our own calculations. -- Bhakti Shringarpure
Please note that while Ngugi's son made an accusation, all his other children responded publicly with an immediately denial, and the charge was unfounded enough that al-Jazeera retracted an article by a guest columnist that highlighted the charge. It's important not to assume any accusation is automatically credible. We owe Ngugi and everyone full due diligence before repeating such charges, especially when there is no corroborating evidence and the alleged victim's own words - in this case his then wife's in published interviews - rebuts it.