Ngugi wa Thiong'o died just a few months ago and I have a few of his books on my TBR, so I was very pleased to get this collection which is due to be published in August 2025.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o had a traumatic childhood under British rule in Kenya - his brother was shot in the back after not hearing an order from a British officer because he was deaf..., later went to prison for several years because of his political plays; but this collection of essays is quite light on the autobiographical details. Instead he writes about his academic career and his beginnings as a writer, and the influence of English (and French) in African academia. He rightfully questions why an Icelandic author can write in Icelandic and expect a successful novel to be translated but an African author, from any country, will be expected to write in English if he wants Amy chance to be published. There's a lot about the politics of languages and how colonial attitudes still prevail even amongst academics from Kenya, Uganda, etc.

The second half was a bit lost on me, through my own lack of knowledge, because each essay is about a different African novelist or playwright, many of which (apart from Achebe) I didn't know. A good number of these were female authors which was good to see. That was was a real literary criticism, deep and detailed but yes... Not as interesting for someone who hasn't read the books.

Overall though, I learnt a lot, found the essays very readable (but at times repetitive) and wrote down the names of many authors I want to read next.

The reason why I was interested in reviewing this book is because I work in the field of English language education textbook publishing, and it’s important for me, as someone from the “inner circle” of English (see Kachru, 1992), to help produce materials that reflect a greater global representation. After all, in the likes of common textbook units such as “hobbies”, not every young person around the world goes horse riding at the weekend or attends homecoming parties.

There have been writings by “inner circle” authors that have critiqued the enforcement of English as a national language in lands outside of England, but it’s only been more recently that those in the West have had more opportunities to hear the voices of those directly impacted by the dominance of the English language. And, thank goodness for this refreshing change. I regrettably didn’t know the name of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o before reading this book. He has written a number of much-praised works that ultimately call for the revitalization of African languages in intellectual and literary life, although he sadly passed away in the spring of 2025, just a few months before this book is to be released.

The general structure and content of the book is as follows: The first part provides some context and commentary on why Europhonism has been so destructive for the African continent (and elsewhere). The second part presents and discusses academics who have challenged Europhonism, including Chinua Achebe.

In the first part, the book inevitably includes mention of colonialism. From the book, I come to learn about two different models of education that were espoused across colonized parts of Africa and which stemmed from traditional British models and which largely continue today. About the Horton–Asquith model, which Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o particularly despises, he says something very pointed:
“A people can be deprived of wealth and power, but one of the worst deprivations is depriving them of the means of perceiving and articulating their deprivation, and thereby of developing a vision and strategy and tactics for fighting it.”

In my publishing work, these deprivations remain real. For example, typically we can’t make reference to those from the LGBTQIA+ communities [“some markets won’t like that”]; we can’t feature homeless people [“we need to be aspirational”]; we need to keep naming to Peter and Sara [“international markets won’t be able to pronounce names like Rakesh and Niamh”]. In one publishing company, I was not allowed to include images of Asians, even though the target markets for our books were in Asia. (I did fight back, but to no avail, with the argument that it looks strange to be looking at a book and noticing that no-one in it looks like you.)

Other, very thought-provoking lines from the book include:
“Imperial educational policies were meant to create colonies of the mind.”
“Abnormality becomes normalized.” (This could also read “Exclusion becomes normalized.”)
“Balanced and inclusive education calls for a new slogan: network, not hierarchy.”
“Globalization began with the Black body.” (a nod to slavery)

As Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o emphasizes, the problem is that Western education models remain so entrenched across the world for myriad reasons (and we can therefore extend this statement to explain why there are so many outdated legacy facets in contemporary English language education textbooks). His most critical argument is that if we deny the expression of local languages, we deny people their heritage and their complete identity. Entire histories get lost. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o makes a call to not only bring back “marginal” languages but to place them center stage. However, the challenge is how exactly can we bring them back to a more prominent position, since Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o also recognizes that some of the best contemporary writers from Africa are in many ways the product of Western-styled universities, as are many government leaders. And, this lack of “how” is maybe the weakness of this book. Can we truly go back and undo all of the colonial influence, or do we need to find a middle ground or a new pathway? Other academics already seem to have long-since identified some of the challenges to this question and have elaborated to a greater depth to what Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is calling for. For example, Tuck and Yang (2012) warn through thorough explanation that deliberate effort at decolonialism can risk “further settler colonialism”.

Overall, I think this book offers a valuable contribution to discussions around understanding and critiquing colonial legacies as well as considering the impact of selectively erasing identities from books and education systems. The themes/information in this book won’t be new to most of the readers who gravitate toward this title (e.g., Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Walter Mignolo, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Suresh Canagarajh, Robert Phillipson, and Alistair Pennycook have solidly tackled these themes elsewhere; hence why I was close to giving this book four stars), but it seems that we can’t be served enough in terms of the book’s themes, particularly when today’s dominating Western discourse and governmental actions appear to be more about excluding rather than including, so I have given it five stars.