Ngugiwa Thiong'o, Kenyan author and dissident who became giant of modern literature, dies at 87

NGUGIWA Thiong'o, the revered Kenyan man of letters and voice of dissent who in dozens of fiction and non-fiction books traced his country's history from British imperialism to home-ruled tyranny and challenged not only the stories told but the language used to tell them, has died at 87.

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Derek Warker, publicist for Ngugi's US publisher The New Press, confirmed the death to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Further details were not immediately available.

Whether through novels such as "The Wizard of the Crow" and "Petals of Blood", memoirs such as "Birth of a Dream Weaver" or the landmark critique "Decolonising the Mind", Ngugi embodied the very heights of the artist's calling as a truth teller and explorer of myth, as a breaker of rules and steward of culture.

He was a perennial candidate for the Nobel literature prize and a long-term artist in exile, imprisoned for a year in the 1970s and harassed for decades after.

"Resistance is the best way of keeping alive," he told the Guardian in 2018.

"It can take even the smallest form of saying no to injustice. If you really think you're right, you stick to your beliefs, and they help you to survive."