Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is a legendary Kenyan author, academic, and the undisputed patriarch of modern African literature. Imprisoned without trial in 1977 by the Jomo Kenyatta regime for the political message of his play 'Ngaahika Ndeenda' (I Will Marry When I Want), he famously wrote his first Gikuyu novel, 'Caitaani Mutharabaini' (Devil on the Cross), on toilet paper while in solitary confinement. Following his release, he was forced into a decades-long exile in the United States. In 2026, Ngũgĩ remains the absolute, foundational champion for the decolonization of the African mind. Serving as a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, he relentlessly advocates for African writers to abandon English and French, arguing that indigenous languages are the only true vessels of African cultural memory. A perennial favorite for the Nobel Prize in Literature, his intellectual legacy dictates the curriculum of post-colonial studies globally.