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Ngũgĩ's Wizard of the Crow: Women as the “Voice of the People” & the Western Audience

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2013

Joseph McLaren
Affiliation:
Hofstra university, Hempstead
Ernest N. Emenyonu
Affiliation:
University of Michigan-Flint
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Summary

The writings of Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o have consistently presented women characters, from his early novels Weep Not, Child (1964) and The River Between (1965) to his middle period works such as Petals of Blood (1977) to his Gikuyu works translated into English, including Caitanni Mutharaba-ini (1980), translated as Devil on the Cross (1982); and Matigari ma Njiruungi (1986), translated by Wangui wa Goro as Matigari (1989). Ngũgĩ's most recent novel, also written in Gikuyu, Murogi wa Kagogo (2004) or Wizard of the Crow (2006), is the culmination of his orature-based, satiric novelistic writings after a twenty-year period. A magnum opus, Wizard of the Crow demonstrates his portrayal of women characters in a number of ways. His principal woman character, Nyawira, meaning ‘work,’ is central to ‘the “Movement for the Voice of the People”’ (Wizard 82), the organization that resists the retrogressive policies of the ‘Ruler’ of the ‘Free Republic of Aburiria,’ the fictitious African state used to satirize problematic governments in the South and elsewhere. Nyawira's relationship with the Wizard is framed against her progressive political awareness.

One of the central questions is whether Ngũgĩ depicts women as tropes rather than as ‘real’ characters confronted with gender issues in domestic and public spaces. Does Ngũgĩ employ women to further his argument relating to the nation, implicitly Kenya, and the role women can play in national reconstruction?

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2009

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