Renowned writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o has been picked for a literary award organised by the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Prof Ngugi won the Nicol Guilln Lifetime Achievement Award for Philosophical Literature because of the global importance of his work, the awarding committee said.

The committee, which includes novelists Edwidge Danticat and Junot Diaz, said his contributions to literary theory, philosophy in literature, African letters, post-colonial criticism and the struggle for human dignity stood among the best of the age.

President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association Jane Anna Gordon said the Kenyan writer’s works exemplified “the intellectual and political boldness and courage that we encourage”.

Other winners were Prof Frieda Ekotto, who bagged the Philosophical Literature award because of her contributions as a novelist, a theorist of race, sexuality, and criminality. Supriya Nair won the Outstanding Book award for his book The Pathologies of Paradise: Caribbean Detours.

The Awards Committee said the book was a rich and compelling analysis of Anglophone Caribbean literature from multidisciplinary, multi-genre and multi-theoretical perspectives that include postcolonial literary theory, psychoanalysis, cultural studies theory, and transnational Caribbean feminist theory.