Kenyan author sweeps in as late favourite in Nobel prize for literature | Books | guardian.co.uk

A novelist, post-colonial theorist and social activist, Ngugi wa Thiong'o currently holds the post of Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He began writing in English, but following his arrest and imprisonment without charge at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Kenya after the performance of his critical play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) in 1977, he made the decision to work in his mother tongue, Gikuyu. He wrote the novel Caitani Mutharabaini (The Devil on the Cross) on toilet paper during his time in prison; his other works include the childhood memoir Dreams in a Time of War and the sweeping satire Wizard of the Crow (Murogi wa Kagogo), which is widely considered to be his finest work.

Kenyan author sweeps in as late favourite in Nobel prize for literature | Books | guardian.co.uk: "-