My honest opinion is it really does not matter at all which language you write in. But for the sake of the argument, I will say it’s better to write in English. As Ngugi remarks, there are some places around the world where if you use a language other than English, you might get prosecuted in some way. “How come that a post-colonial African government has put me in prison for writing in an African language?” In some cases, it seems like whether you use English or not is similar to wearing a mask: whether you chose to wear a mask or not is a political statement and people will bash you about that. In that sense, if using English is a safe choice, then why wouldn’t you go with that? As Rushdie observes, English is growing into the culture of post-colonized countries: “What seems to me to be happening is that those peoples who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it—assisted by the English language’s enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.” He also states that the whole English v. local language debate is pretty outdated nowadays, and only the older folk seem to be bothered by it. Forcing people to write in their home languages to “preserve culture” is pretty silly in itself. First of all, who are we to tell them what to do? Second of all, there is no intrinsic value in culture, it’s just people’s ego driving them to take pride in their culture.
I personally do not feel discouraged to write in any language because it’s really not a big deal what language you write in.
Thanks, Atai. You carefully weigh both authors’ claims, and also point to Rushdie’s observation that this concern is much more generational than cultural.