This chapter seeks to examine intellectual streams that have shaped Ngugi’s poetics and what such contexts mean for Ngugi’s radical poetics. Is there a linear relationship and how has Ngugi shaped radical poetics on the continent when it comes to issues such the language of publishing and the decolonisation project? It argues that some of the shifts in Ngugi’s aesthetic and political ideology are linked to Ngugi’s tenure at Leeds University. His exposure to the works of Marx and Fanon and the influence of a group of African scholars at Leeds, and exposure to the radical scholar Arnold Kettle, marked a major shift in Ngugi’s aesthetic and ideological practices. Reading Fanon, in particular, must have transformed Ngugi’s views on a number of issues, ranging from violence for liberation to the nature of neo-colonialism. Fanon’s ideas on the nature and role of the national bourgeoisie, and his notion of the ‘native poet’ as the custodian of national culture, find echoes in Ngugi’s fiction and essays.