Ngugi wa Thiong'o Analysis

In addition to his novels, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (ehn-GEW-gee wah tee-ONG-goh) has published short stories, numerous plays, and several works of nonfiction. His plays include The Black Hermit (pr. 1962); The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (pr. 1974), written with Micere Githae-Mugo; and, with Ngugi wa Mirii, Ngaahika Ndeenda (pr. 1977; I Will Marry When I Want, 1982) and Maitu Njugira (pb. 1982; Mother, Sing for Me, 1986). Ngugi has expressed his commitment to his political responsibility as a writer in numerous works of literary, political, and social criticism, including Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture, and Politics (1972), Writers in Politics (1981; enlarged, revised, and subtitled A Re-engagement with Issues of Literature and Society in a 1997 edition), Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1981), Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), and Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams: Toward a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa (1998). In the 1980’s, he pursued his interest in African-based educational curricula by recasting stories of the Mau Mau resistance, many of which had appeared in his novels, as works for children, written first in his native Kikuyu and later translated into English. A collection of Ngugi’s essays and talks written between 1985 and 1990 appeared in 1993 under the title Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms.

With the publication of his first three novels, Ngugi wa Thiong’o quickly established himself as the major East African writer of the anglophone literary movement that began in Africa in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. This anglophone literary school, which must be distinguished from the preceding romantic francophone movement called "negritude" because of its different political assumptions and its stress on realism, coincided with the bitter political and at times military struggle and the eventual achievement of independence by most African countries that had been under British colonial rule. Given the political situation, this literary movement was naturally preoccupied with assessing the impact of colonialism and with defining independent and syncretic African cultures. With a handful of other African writers, Ngugi stands out as a literary pioneer in this movement.

Ngugi’s systematic examination of the manner in which indigenous cultures were destroyed by colonialism has distinguished him from many of his colleagues, while his depiction of these cultures’ attempts to reconstitute themselves has made him unique. His refusal to divorce literature from politics and his acerbic portrayal of corruption in independent Kenya—first in Petals of Blood and then in his play Ngaahika Ndeenda, which was considered more dangerous by the government because it was performed in an indigenous language—earned him the wrath of political leaders and a year in prison without a trial. Building on his reputation as a fearless critic of African dictatorships, Ngugi produced Wizard of the Crow, which takes up where Petals of Blood left off—-sparing readers nothing by graphically depicting the carnage wrought by these murderous regimes, yet all the while employing his characteristic whimsy and humorous satire to highlight the surreal world the dictators create for their subjects.

Ngugi has also been concerned with the implications entailed in the use of English language by African writers, and he has supplemented his theoretical reflections by switching to Kikuyu as his primary literary language. Ngugi is widely recognized as Africa’s foremost revolutionary writer and is one of the world’s most read African writers.

The representation of women and women’s experiences has changed over the body of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s work, as has his depiction of men and men’s experiences. What differences do you see between male figures in the early works and male figures in later works?

In what ways might the experience of the English-speaking reader of Ngugi’s translated texts be affected by a lack of familiarity with Gikuyu?

What are some of the countries with which the characters in Wizard of the Crow have contact? What do these encounters suggest about Ngugi’s vision of global exchange?

Throughout Wizard of the Crow, the Christian soldiers are on the hunt for the devil. What are some things that the devil could symbolize?

Most of the characters in Wizard of the Crow wish not to be associated with sorcerers or “superstitious” behavior and yet consult the Wizard. How does Ngugi represent the Wizard’s practice?