Ngugi wa Thiong’o PDF
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NGUGIWA THIONG'O Kenyan dramatist and novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o is re- garded as one of the most influential African writers today, not only for his creative work but also for his criticism of wider cultural issues - isues such as nation and narration, power and performance, language and identity, empire and postcoloniality. Simon Gikandi's study offers a comprehen- sive analysis of all Ngugi's published work and explores the development of the major novels and plays against a back- ground of colonialism and decolonization in Kenya. Gikandi places the works in a context that examines the way they engage with the changing history of Africa. Tracing Ngugi's career from the 1960s through to his role in shaping a radical culture in East Africa in the 1970s and his imprisonment and exile in the 1980s, this book provides fresh insight into the author's life and the historic events that produced his work. Simon Gikandi is Professor of English Language and Litera- ture at the University of Michigan. He was born in Kenya and educated there, the United Kingdom and the United States. His previous books include Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction (1991), Writing in Limbo: Modern- ism and Caribbean Literature (1992), and Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism (1996). He is editor (with Abiola Irele) of the forthcoming Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN LITERATURE Series editor: Professor Abiola Irele, Ohio State University Each volume in this unique series of critical studies will offer a compre- hensive and in-depth account of the whole vuvre of one individiaul writer from Africa or the Caribbean, in such a way that the book may be considered a complete coverage of the writer's expression up to the time the study is undertaken. Attention will be devoted primarily to the works themselves - their significant themes, governing ideas and formal pro- cedures, biographical and other background information will thus be employed secondarily, to illuminate these aspects of the writer's work where necessary. The emergence in the twentieth century of black literature in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa as a distinct corpus of imagin- ative work represents one of the most notable developments in world literature in modern times. This series has been established to meet the needs of this growing area of study. It is hoped that it will not only contribute to a wider understanding of the humanistic significance of modern literature from Africa and the Caribbean through the scholarly presentation of the work of the major writers, but also offer a wider framework for the ongoing debates about the problems of interpretation within the disciplines concerned. Already published Chinua Achebe, by C. L. Innes Nadine Gordimer, by Dominic Head Edouard Glissant, by J. Michael Dash V. S. Naipaul, by Fawzia Mustafa Ami Cesaire, by Gregson Davis J. M. Coetzee, by Dominic Head Jean Rhys, by Elaine Savory NGUGI WA THIONG'O SIMON GIKANDI CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www. Cambridge. org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521119016 © Cambridge University Press 2000 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2000 Reprinted 2002 This digitally printed version 2009 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Gikandi, Simon Ngugi wa Thiongi'o / Simon Gikandi. p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in African and Caribbean literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 521 48006 X 1. Ngaga wa Thiong'o, 1938-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Kenya-In literature. I. Title. II. Series. PR9381.9.N45Z67 2000 823 21-dc21 99-043662 ISBN 978-0-521-48006-2 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-11901-6 paperback To my teachers, Okotp'Bitek and Henry Owour Anyumba, in memoriam Contents Preface page ix Chronology xi 1 Introduction: reading texts and contexts i 2 Narrative and nationalist desire: early short stories and The River Between 39 3 Educating colonial subjects: the "emergency stories" and Weep Not, Child 71 4 Representing decolonization: A Grain of Wheat 98 5 The poetics of cultural production: the later short stories and Petals of Blood 128 6 Performance and power: the plays 160 7 The prisonhouse of culture: Detained and Devil on the Cross 195 8 The work of art in exile: Matigari 223 9 Writing freedom: essays and criticism 247 Conclusion 286 Notes 293 Bibliography 317 Index 325 Vll Preface This was a book that I resisted writing for both personal and intellectual reasons. Although separated by a generation, Ngugi and I share a common colonial and postcolonial background, one whose most defining characteristics are the "state of emergency" declared by the British government in Kenya in 1952, the euphoria of independence in the 1960s, the emergence of the student demo- cratic movement at the University of Nairobi in the 1970s, and the consolidation of the undemocratic postcolonial state in the 1980s. Given this background, I felt, for a long time, that I did not have enough distance from Ngugi's works to be able to develop the kind of systematic critique of his works that I wanted. At the same time, however, I felt that more than any other African writer Ngugi needed the kind of sustained critique that would take his readers beyond the simple politics of identity that have come to dominate so much postcolonial theory and criticism. At a time when postcolonial theory seems to have lost interest in local knowledge, history, and context, I thought a critique of Ngugi's works was an ideal way of bringing the referent back into literary studies. But once I had decided to write a book that would foreground how a specifically African context weaves its way into Ngugi's texts, I was confronted with a serious theoretical problem: does an insider's knowledge of the conditions in which works are produced help or deter critique? In writing this book I have tried as much as possible to eschew the role of the native informant. At the same time, however, I have found it difficult to repress or transcend the insider's knowledge that is the logical product of the common referent Ngugi and I share. I have sometimes used this "insider information" to reject some dominant interpretations of
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