Mukoma Wa Ngugi talks about his new novel, Unbury Our Dead with Song, for BBC Sounds: The Cultural Frontline podcast series. In the episode, "Mukoma Wa Ngugi: How music inspired my writing," Ngugi reads from the novel and reflects on how his homeland shaped his art.
"It's really about love for African music. For African people, if their soul could sing, what would that sound be like?"
Listen to the podcast here.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi is Associate Professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University and the author of The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity and Ownership, the novels Mrs. Shaw, Black Star Nairobi, Nairobi Heat, and two books of poetry, Logotherapy and Hurling Words at Consciousness. Unbury Our Dead With Song, a novel about competing Tizita musicians, was released in May 2021 from Cassava Republic Press.