Ngugi wa Mirii was co-author of one of the most influential works in modern African literature. His play, I Will Marry When I Want, written with Ngugi wa Thiong’o, was a searing indictment of what he considered the betrayal of the hopes of ordinary Kenyans by the country’s postindependence leaders. First performed in 1977, its brilliant use of song helped the play to become an immediate popular hit across Kenya, leading to a government ban and the persecution of the authors which, eventually, forced wa Miiri into exile in Zimbabwe.

There, over the course of two decades, Ngugi wa Mirii was a pioneering force in community theatre, founding a national organisation, which supported more than 300 theatre groups across the country. While his focus remained pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist, his concept of theatre was always rooted in the concerns of ordinary people, and his work played an important role in raising popular consciousness of womens’ rights and the dangers of HIV/Aids.

Wa Mirii repaid the sanctuary and support that the Zimbabwe Government offered him by becoming an outspoken supporter of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party. The “Son of Two Nations”, as wa Mirii liked to call himself, was, according to his critics, unwilling to acknowledge the injustices committed by Mugabe as he would have been among the first to denounce similar shortcomings in Kenya’s leaders.

Ngugi wa Mirii was born in 1951 in Limuru in central Kenya, about 30 miles from the capital, Nairobi. The second born in a family of six, after leaving school he worked for a time for the Kenyan Post Office. But after taking a diploma at the Institute of Adult Education in Nairobi, he joined the Institute of Development Studies where he first came into contact with his future co-author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who was himself already involved in trying to bring theatre to peasants and workers.

Together, in 1977, they created and produced the first production of I Will Marry When I Want at a cultural centre in Limuru. It used actors from the Kikuyu tribe — the main tribe in Kenya — speaking their own Gikuyu language. The play tells the story of a simple peasant farmer and his wife living in abject poverty on 1½wealthy<NO>rich man, who is himself no more than a stooge for unscrupulous foreign businessmen.

But what made this orthodox Marxist critique so unpalatable to Kenya’s leaders was the overt accusation that they had betrayed the bond of the Mau Mau insurgents who had died to free the country of its colonial yoke. This was too much for Kenya’s Vice-President and soon to be president, Daniel arap Moi, who had the play banned and the two authors arrested.

Wa Mirii, unlike wa Thiong’o,

was soon freed and continued his activism. In 1982 he collaborated again with wa Thiong’o, by now released himself, on another work, Mother Cry for Me. This time the Kenyan authorities reacted before it reached the stage, dismantling the community theatre in Limuru where it was in

final rehearsal.

Fearing imminent re-arrest, wa Thiong’o fled to London and then New York, while wa Mirii escaped to Zimbabwe, where he was joined the following year by his wife and their 12-month-old daughter.

Wa Mirii found the revolutionary fervour in the newly independent Zimbabwe much more to his liking and was immediately adopted by the Mugabe Government as a cultural ally in its denunciation of imperialism and capitalism. Wa Mirii was given official support and funding for a range of arts projects and in 1985 he founded a national association of community theatres.

This was followed by similar initiatives in the fields of dance, film and literature. Wa Mirii became a citizen of Zimbabwe and Mugabe later appointed him a member of the government-run Media and Information Commission.

Ngugi wa Mirii died when his car crashed into a lorry in Harare. His death prompted tributes across the region but particularly from officialdom in Zimbabwe.

He is survived by his wife, Margaret Wairimu Ngugi, and five children.

Ngugi wa Mirii, African playwright and arts activist, was born in 1951. He died in a car crash on May 3, 2008, aged 57