Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025)

What a hard book to review. Almost fable-like, it describes a black savior trying to protect his people from the invading white people. It’s beautiful in its telling. Conversely, it praises female circumcision as an important rite signifying the tribe’s independence from the “evil” Christians. At once I want to love and hate this book. It was written by a Kenyan man in the early 1960s before circumcision was decried for its brutality. But the author was considered a show more “progressive.” Ha! I think he portrayed the gross outcome of the practice in the story but I can’t get past this statement supporting its continuation: “Circumcision of women was not important as a physical operation. It was what it did inside a person. It could not be stopped overnight. Patience and, above all, education, were needed.” I still give the book a pick; it’s an authentic viewpoint told well even if I find parts of it despicable. show less

I've mentioned this before, but I work in publishing, and the other day I overheard two coworkers talking about book descriptors they hated (personally, I've got a bone to pick with "luminous," but we'll save that for another day). One said, "Every time a book says 'magisterial' in its flap copy, I know it's going to be long and boring."

Well, Wizard of the Crow is an exception to that proclamation—maybe the exception that proves the rule, but an exception nonetheless. Because it may be show more long (clocking in at a healthy 760 pages) but it's not at all boring. In fact it was a joy to read. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's satirical epic of authoritarianism and resistance manages to be so many things at once: wondrous, brutal, tragic, hilarious, surreal, beautiful, dark, absurd.

I think a book this vital could only be produced by someone who has lived through dictatorship—Ngũgĩ was a political prisoner in his native Kenya, writing his novel Devil on the Cross on toilet paper in a cramped cell and living in exile for decades following his release. So I trust what he has to say (however indirectly, as this is a fantastical book set in the fictional Free Republic of Aburĩria) about the way dictators wield fear and chaos, the legacy of colonialist violence, and the potency of imagining the future.

It's hard to say much more than that because so much happens in The Wizard of the Crow. Despite its political verve, it is first and foremost just a really good story, complete with villains, magic, and heroes, daring escapes and transcendent love. It's no coincidence that the act of storytelling itself features so heavily in the plot.

This is a hugely overlooked gem of a book. I'm eager to read more of Ngũgĩ's work; we'll see if it's all just as magisterial.

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Global Challenge: Kenya show less

Set on the eve of Kenyan independence, this covers events going back up to 15 years, to the aftermath of WW2 and the Mau Mau rebellion. It is set in and a round a cluster of villages and has a mostly black cast. They have varied experiences of the uprising and vastly different expectations of the outcome of independence. Some of the characters we meet have been involved in the independence struggle, others have been on the side of the whites. Some have spent time in detention camps and their show more actions have become mythologised over time. It felt that there were almost no characters who did not have at least some kind of mixed feelings of actions on their past that impacted on their current state. The rally for independence and the outcome of that reveals a truth that had been hidden for years, about the betrayal of a former freedom fighter. Who betrayed him is not what those involved expected and the outcome is worryingly left opaque. It seems that independence is not a wiping clean of the slate and that the same people now have to renegotiate their future while accepting their varied pasts. It didn't feel that the future was going to be plain sailing.
It is well written and the characters are fleshed out and feel real in both the present and the past. In several cases their lives have not turned out how they thought they would but they are doing what humans do, living one day at a time. show less

Some novels can make you laugh; some can make you cry. Just occasionally they can make you angry.

There was little to laugh at in Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. This is a book designed to evoke quite a different set of reactions, a book it would be difficult to read and not feel frustrated, exasperated and even outraged.

This is a novel about disillusionment; about the loss of the ideal of independence and the destruction of hope; about betrayal and hypocrisy and about the triumph show more of corruption over humanity. So incendiary was this novel at the time of its publication in 1977 that its author was imprisoned without charges by a Kenyan government sensitive to criticism of its manner of ruling their newly-independent nation. His arrest provoked a worldwide protest and led to his adoption by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience.

Petals of Blood opens with the arrest and detention of four people from the village of Ilmorog. It's a village geographically remote from the centre of government and remote from the minds of those who form that government. Ilmorog

One night three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery in the village are murdered in an arson attack. Four suspects are quickly arrested and detained for questioning: Munira, the headmaster of the village's small school; Karega his assistant teacher, Abdullah, the crippled owner of the local store and Wanja the beautiful, spirited barmaid/shop assistant. The four are linked to each other through friendship, to the fortunes of Ilmorog and the fortunes of Kenya itself.

Ngugi uses these four characters to unfold a human drama, telling the story in flashback to twelve years before the fire when Munira had arrived in Ilmorog to set up the school. Through the individual stories of the quartet we discover their past disappointments and frustrations with post independent Kenya motivate them to push for change. When the rains fail, the crops wither and the villagers begin to die, they hatch a plan to lead the villagers on a long walk to Nairobi, to lobby their elected officials for help.

"...it was they outside there who ought to dance to the needs of the people. Now it seemed that authority, power, everything, was outside Ilmorog... out there....in the big city. They must go and confront that which had been the cause of their empty granaries, that which had sapped their energies, and caused their weakness. Long ago when their cattle and goats were taken by hostile nations, the warriors went out, followed them and would not return until they had recovered their stolen wealth. Now Ilmorog's own heart ad been stole. They would follow to recover it. It was a new kind of war... but war all the same."

The walk confronts them with an even harsher reality. Modern Kenya is dominated by corrupt businessmen and politicians who have quickly and conveniently forgotten the high ideals of the revolt they waged to expel the British. No-one in this new order, neither church or state, cares about the plight of the people of a remote village. Despised and patronised but with all appeals for help rejected, they return home dejected.

The exodus is an emotive set piece which symbolises the moral decline that Ngugi sees permeate the country. But in case we didn't quite understand his point, he uses the second half of the novel to reinforce the message. The efforts of the villagers to draw attention to their community have unfortunate consequences which render them vulnerable to commercial opportunism, political expediency and religious hypocrisy.

By the end, the four friends feel a sense of betrayal by those in power. Yet despite the personal losses they suffer, they never lose their faith that one day, Kenya will fulfil its true destiny. This time it will be a country run by the people themselves.

"Tomorrow it would be the workers and the peasants leading the struggle and seizing power to overturn the system of all its preying bloodthirsty gods and gnomic angels, bringing to an end the reign of the few over the many and the era of drinking blood and feasting on human flesh. Then, only then,would the kingdom of man and woman really begin, joying and loving in creative labour."

Political corruption, social injustice, the struggle for freedom are not not uncommon themes in African literature. But Petals of Blood is one of the most strongly narrated indictments of a regime that assumed power with a promise of ending the inequality of its colonial masters only to perpetuate the same oppressions and divisions. Little wonder those in power were too afraid to let this author continue unfettered in his critique.

The Verdict

A truly remarkable novel. Difficult at times to read unless you are familiar with the country's history. But it's passionate depiction of the corrupting influence of power blended with some wonderfully portrayed characters, make this a compelling book. show less