Son accuses Kenya playwright Ngugi Wa Thiong of abusing late mum

By Tosin Brown

Writer, poet and associate Professor of Literature at Cornell University, Mukoma Wa Ngugi has accused his father and famous writer, playwright and scholar Professor Ngugi Wa Thiong o of physically abusing his late mother Nyambura.

Mukoma further alleged that his ailing father silenced his late mother in order to erase her from his success story.

Mukoma made the allegation against his father on Tuesday, March 12, on his official X page.

The 53-year-old Mukoma shared a newspaper article about his mother and wrote: “My father Ngugi Wa Thiong o physically abused my late mother – he would beat her up.

“Some of my earliest memories are of me going to visit her at my grandmother’s where she would seek refuge. But with that said it is the silencing of who she was that gets me. Ok- I have said it.”

It is unsure what the problem is between Mukoma and his father, but the recent outburst on social media is the recent in his accusation against his father.

In 2022, Mukoma took to the same social media to narrate how his father systematically erased his mother from his success story.

“It hurts to see my late mother, Nyambura (my daughter is named after her) being systematically erased from the Ngugi Wa Thiong’o story. We literally (of course) and figuratively would not be here if it was not for her keeping us glued together through the political persecutions.”

Ngugi, who is renowned as Kenya’s most famous writer, married Nyambura in 1961. The two went on to have six children: Thiong’o, Kimunya, Nduchu, Mukoma, Wanjiku and Njoki.

Apart from Kimunya, an economics graduate from the University of Nairobi, the rest of their children attended US universities.

Ngugi’s first marriage collapsed due to detentions and exiles orchestrated by both Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi.

Nyambura died in 1995 and Thiong’o couldn’t attend her funeral as he was in exile in the United States.

He then married Njeri, who already had a daughter from a previous relationship with an African-American partner. The couple went on to have two children before separating last year.

86-year-old Ngugi is currently suffering from kidney failure and living alone under the care of medical personnel at his house in California, US. He recently underwent surgery and undergoes kidney dialysis three times a week.