The Major Influences on Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s Writing Career

Abstract: Do you think that the late Kenyan born celebrated African novelist, dramatist, essayist and critic Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who rose to stardom with the publications of 6 novels, 4 plays, 5 memoirs and autobiographical works, 12 essay collections and monographs, 1 collection of short story and 2 children’s books was born with the ideology and the vision that had shaped the content and form of his literary oeuvre? The inspirational root of Ngugi’s influences discovered from Alliance High School through to Makerere University College Uganda had laid the stair case that he had desired to climb the writing ladder fully equipped to be read and critique by the world. The thrust of this paper is to reveal the great learned minds that had influenced Ngugi as a literary writer. It unveils that Joseph Conrad, D H Lawrence and Gorge Lamming were the renowned European and African writers that had influenced him on the one hand and in the political plane, Karl Marx, VI Lenin and Franz Fanon had exerted mammoth influence on him on the other. They had shaped his ideology and equally accorded him with the vision that inspired him to write and enriched the content and form of his writings.