Ngugi: Please don't cry for me, cry for beloved country Kenya

The new Kenya Kwanza administration is dominated by individuals of questionable integrity, and who have faced just about every imaginable crime in our statutes, including theft and robbery.

I digress. The expansive Guardian piece by the Kenyan writer, Carey Baraka, looked back on my lengthy life of writing, through our three days of interaction at my home in California, last November. I understand Baraka has been subjected to online vitriol for what was seen as intrusive, unethical journalism by exposing my medical condition.

For the record, I shared my story with him as a way of creating public awareness about prostate cancer, as it disproportionately affects black men due to their genetic disposition. Every black male over 40 years should go for medical check-up on his prostate once every year.

If detected early it can be treated and thus prevent many untimely deaths. There is nothing to hide about prostate cancer. Baraka's story, indeed, was a very truthful capture of the mood at that time, as I prepared for a medical procedure for my kidney failure.

Having read The Guardian story several times, I have no idea how some folks have imagined that I live a desolate life, on the fringe of destitution in America. I am busy at work as a writer, while still serving as a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at University of California, Irvine.

Even as retirement looms, at 85, I am blessed to have worked continuously since 1968, and so I hope I will never suffer want. And I'll be able to spend more days with my family and friends.

Author Ngugi wa Thiong'o during a past interview with 'The Standard'. [Beverlyne Musili, Standard]

Even more importantly, have we built institutions that can safeguard rights of the citizens so that no one shall ever go into exile for expressing their thoughts? And is our country safe for those who espouse a different pathway for a more just and equitable society?

Kenyans should not forget that upon my return to Kenya in 2004, after 22 years in exile, my wife and I were brutally attacked by gun-wielding goons while staying in one of the most secure neighbourhoods of Nairobi. Please don't cry for me. Let us cry for our beloved country. We should reflect on the threats to the freedoms for which soldiers of Kenya Land and Freedom Army led by Dedan Kimathi fought so hard to liberate.

Reading from afar, it is concerning that threats to a free Press, runaway corruption and parliamentary acquiescence of the Executive are a recipe for the sort of nightmares that roiled our nation in the past. But that should not lead us to despair but renew Kenyans' collective resolve to secure their hard-won freedom.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a pioneering Kenyan writer and cultural theorist of international renown, has published several dozen books in a career spanning nearly six decades. He's Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at University of California, Irvine.