‘A time has come when silence before the crimes of the neo-colonial regime in Kenya is collusion with social evil’—so wrote Ngũgĩ in 1982 in his most recent book, Barrel of a Pen (New Beacon Books). It was a prophetic description.
On 10 February 1985, after a week in which students had peacefully boycotted classes to protest the expulsion of their leaders, the Kenyan government sent armed police into the University of Nairobi. Teargas and baton charges reportedly left twelve students dead, and more than 150 were taken to hospital. Their demands had included the reinstatement of Ngũgĩ as research professor in the literature department.