Red Salute to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938–2025)
With profound sorrow and deep revolutionary respect, we mourn the passing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan novelist, essayist, playwright, and militant anti-imperialist intellectual, who departed this world in 2025.
Ngũgĩ was not merely a writer — he was a people’s fighter, a cultural warrior who stood firmly against the forces of imperialism, colonialism, and global capitalism. From his early novels like Weep Not, Child and Petals of Blood, to his prison memoir Detained, and his ideological writings like Decolonising the Mind, Ngũgĩ exposed the violent wounds inflicted upon the African continent by the colonial machine.
Ngũgĩ rejected the colonial languages and returned to his mother tongue, Gikuyu, challenging the Western stranglehold over African consciousness. In doing so, he exposed the cultural arm of imperialism — the way language is used as a weapon to erase memory, to dominate identity, and to enforce submission. This act of resistance was not symbolic — it was revolutionary.
His works echoed the Marxist conviction that literature must serve the people. His commitment to class struggle, anti-racism, and the liberation of oppressed nations remains a beacon for writers and revolutionaries across the world. His incarceration by the Kenyan regime was testimony to his power — his words shook the throne.
Ngũgĩ stood in solidarity with struggles beyond Africa — from Latin America to Palestine, from the Dalits of India to the Indigenous peoples of the world. His internationalism was not charity; it was proletarian solidarity.
As the world bids farewell to this titan of anti-colonial thought, we affirm: Ngũgĩ is not dead. His words live, his struggle continues. We, who believe in a world without exploitation, without domination, without oppression — will carry forward his flame.
Let us write in the language of the people, speak the truth of the working class, and fight for the liberation of all humanity.
Red Salute, Comrade Ngũgĩ!
Lal Salaam!
Tuhin,Asim Giri
All India Convenors
Revolutionary Cultural Forum (RCF)
29 th May 2025
