Critical Readings Of The Works Of Ngugi Wa Thiong O

Author : Gambo Sani
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2024-04-18
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9781036400477

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Critical Readings of the Works of Ngugi wa Thiong'o by Gambo Sani Pdf

In this collection of scholarly essays on the works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, one of the most important postcolonial writers alive, the contributors adopt a range of reading approaches and analytical models like feminism, postcolonialism, historicism, formalism, and psychoanalysis, to excavate new meanings and provide fresh insights into Ngugi’s artistic oeuvre. Through some robust and engaging scholarly discourses, the volume animates the politics, poetics, and artistic vision of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, as well as his commitment to the enterprise of decolonisation. The comprehensiveness of this collection is partly illustrated by the fact that it addresses a range of diverse issues in all of Ngugi’s novels, most of his plays, and some of his scholarly works. To this end, the volume is a valuable addition to the body of literature on Ngugi’s works and an important resource material to students, teachers, and researchers of African literature.

Author : Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Publisher : The New Press
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2020-10-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781620975268

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The Perfect Nine by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Pdf

A dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says “tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s novels and memoirs have received glowing praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and NPR; he has been a finalist for the Man International Booker Prize and is annually tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his books have sold tens of thousands of copies around the world. In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughters—called “The Perfect Nine” —and the challenges they set for the 99 suitors who seek their hands in marriage. The epic has all the elements of adventure, with suspense, danger, humor, and sacrifice. Ngũgĩ’s epic is a quest for the beautiful as an ideal of living, as the motive force behind migrations of African peoples. He notes, “The epic came to me one night as a revelation of ideals of quest, courage, perseverance, unity, family; and the sense of the divine, in human struggles with nature and nurture.”

Author : Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2005-02-22
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780143039174

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Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o Pdf

“The definitive African book of the twentieth century” (Moses Isegawa, from the Introduction) by the Nobel Prize–nominated Kenyan writer The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Blood is on the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular triple murder in upcountry Kenya. Yet as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time. First published in 1977, this novel was so explosive that its author was imprisoned without charges by the Kenyan government. His incarceration was so shocking that newspapers around the world called attention to the case, and protests were raised by human-rights groups, scholars, and writers, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Donald Barthelme, Harold Pinter, and Margaret Drabble.

Author : Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Publisher : The New Press
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2019-03-05
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781620974667

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Minutes of Glory by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Pdf

A dazzling short story collection from the person Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls "one of the greatest writers of our time" Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, although renowned for his novels, memoirs, and plays, honed his craft as a short story writer. From "The Fig Tree, " written in 1960, his first year as an undergraduate at Makerere University College in Uganda, to the playful "The Ghost of Michael Jackson," written as a professor at the University of California, Irvine, these collected stories reveal a master of the short form. Covering the period of British colonial rule and resistance in Kenya to the bittersweet experience of independence—and including two stories that have never before been published in the United States— Ngũgĩ's collection features women fighting for their space in a patriarchal society, big men in their Bentleys who have inherited power from the British, and rebels who still embody the fighting spirit of the downtrodden. One of Ngũgĩ's most beloved stories, "Minutes of Glory," tells of Beatrice, a sad but ambitious waitress who fantasizes about being feted and lauded over by the middle-class clientele in the city's beer halls. Her dream leads her on a witty and heartbreaking adventure. Published for the first time in America, Minutes of Glory and Other Stories is a major literary event that celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa's best-loved writers.

Author : G. D. Killam
Publisher : Three Continents
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1984
Category : African literature (English)
ISBN : STANFORD:36105039814137

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Critical Perspectives on Ngugi Wa Thiong'o by G. D. Killam Pdf

This appraisal of the Kenyan novelist, playwright, essayist and scholar, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, focuses on his first five novels and his collection of essays entitled, Homecoming. The book discusses the literary and political influences on Ngugi, his use of folklore and his depiction of women.

Author : Peter Nazareth
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Africa
ISBN : UCSC:32106015725697

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Critical Essays on Ngũgĩ Wa Thiongʼo by Peter Nazareth Pdf

The full range of literary traditions comes to life in the Twayne Critical Essays Series. Volume editors have carefully selected critical essays that represent the full spectrum of controversies, trends and methodologies relating to each author's work. Essays include writings from the author's native country and abroad, with interpretations from the time they were writing, through the present day. Each volume includes: -- An introduction providing the reader with a lucid overview of criticism from its beginnings -- illuminating controversies, evaluating approaches and sorting out the schools of thought -- The most influential reviews and the best reprinted scholarly essays -- A section devoted exclusively to reviews and reactions by the subject's contemporaries -- Original essays, new translations and revisions commissioned especially for the series -- Previously unpublished materials such as interviews, lost letters and manuscript fragments -- A bibliography of the subject's writings and interviews -- A name and subject index The highly acclaimed African writer (Petals of Blood, A Grain of Wheat) who illuminates the struggles of Africa and the Third World by writing about his own people, the Gikuyu.

Author : Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo
Publisher : East African Publishers
Page : 788 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Africa
ISBN : 9966254919

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Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo Pdf

Author : Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 121 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2012-01-31
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780231530750

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Globalectics by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Pdf

A masterful writer working in many genres, Ngugi wa Thiong'o entered the East African literary scene in 1962 with the performance of his first major play, The Black Hermit, at the National Theatre in Uganda. In 1977 he was imprisoned after his most controversial work, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), produced in Nairobi, sharply criticized the injustices of Kenyan society and unequivocally championed the causes of ordinary citizens. Following his release, Ngugi decided to write only in his native Gikuyu, communicating with Kenyans in one of the many languages of their daily lives, and today he is known as one of the most outspoken intellectuals working in postcolonial theory and the global postcolonial movement. In this volume, Ngugi wa Thiong'o summarizes and develops a cross-section of the issues he has grappled with in his work, which deploys a strategy of imagery, language, folklore, and character to "decolonize the mind." Ngugi confronts the politics of language in African writing; the problem of linguistic imperialism and literature's ability to resist it; the difficult balance between orality, or "orature," and writing, or "literature"; the tension between national and world literature; and the role of the literary curriculum in both reaffirming and undermining the dominance of the Western canon. Throughout, he engages a range of philosophers and theorists writing on power and postcolonial creativity, including Hegel, Marx, Lévi-Strauss, and Aimé Césaire. Yet his explorations remain grounded in his own experiences with literature (and orature) and reworks the difficult dialectics of theory into richly evocative prose.

Author : Brendon Nicholls
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2016-05-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317087588

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Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Gender, and the Ethics of Postcolonial Reading by Brendon Nicholls Pdf

This is the first comprehensive book-length study of gender politics in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's fiction. Brendon Nicholls argues that mechanisms of gender subordination are strategically crucial to Ngugi's ideological project from his first novel to his most recent one. Nicholls describes the historical pressures that lead Ngugi to represent women as he does, and shows that the novels themselves are symptomatic of the cultural conditions that they address. Reading Ngugi's fiction in terms of its Gikuyu allusions and references, a gendered narrative of history emerges that creates transgressive spaces for women. Nicholls bases his discussion on moments during the Mau Mau rebellion when women's contributions to the anticolonial struggle could not be reduced to a patriarchal narrative of Kenyan history, and this interpretive maneuver permits a reading of Ngugi's fiction that accommodates female political and sexual agency. Nicholls contributes to postcolonial theory by proposing a methodology for reading cultural difference. This methodology critiques cultural practices like clitoridectomy in an ethical manner that seeks to avoid both cultural imperialism and cultural relativisim. His strategy of 'performative reading,' that is, making the conditions of one text (such as folklore, history, or translation) active in another (for example, fiction, literary narrative, or nationalism), makes possible an ethical reading of gender and of the conditions of reading in translation.

Author : Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Publisher : New Press, The
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2016-10-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781620972670

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Birth of a Dream Weaver by Ngugi wa Thiong'o Pdf

One of Oprah.com's "17 Must-Read Books for the New Year" and O Magazine's "10 Titles to Pick up Now." “Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time. ” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Guardian, Best Books of 2016. “Every page ripples with a contagious faith in education and in the power of literature to shape the imagination and scour the conscience.” —The Washington Post From one of the world’s greatest writers, the story of how the author found his voice as a novelist at Makerere University in Uganda Birth of a Dream Weaver charts the very beginnings of a writer’s creative output. In this wonderful memoir, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o recounts the four years he spent at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda—threshold years during which he found his voice as a journalist, short story writer, playwright, and novelist just as colonial empires were crumbling and new nations were being born—under the shadow of the rivalries, intrigues, and assassinations of the Cold War. Haunted by the memories of the carnage and mass incarceration carried out by the British colonial-settler state in his native Kenya but inspired by the titanic struggle against it, Ngũgĩ, then known as James Ngugi, begins to weave stories from the fibers of memory, history, and a shockingly vibrant and turbulent present. What unfolds in this moving and thought-provoking memoir is simultaneously the birth of one of the most important living writers—lauded for his “epic imagination” (Los Angeles Times)—the death of one of the most violent episodes in global history, and the emergence of new histories and nations with uncertain futures.

Author : Ngugi wa Thiong'o,Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo
Publisher : Heinemann
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1987
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0435908308

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Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o,Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo Pdf

"Two small boys stand on a rubbish heap and look into the future. One boy is excited, he is beginning school; the other, his brother, is an apprentice carpetner. Together, they will serve their country--the teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya and times are against them. In the forests, the Mau Mau are waging war against the white government, and two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, and the rest of their family, need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical man, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge, the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up"--P. [4] of cover.

Author : Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Publisher : The New Press
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2018-03-06
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781620973349

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Wrestling with the Devil by Ngugi wa Thiong'o Pdf

A New York Times Editors’ Choice "A welcome addition to the vast literature produced by jailed writers across the centuries . . . [a] thrilling testament to the human spirit." —Ariel Dorfman, The New York Times Book Review "Wrestling with the Devil is a powerful testament to the courage of Ngũgĩ and his fellow prisoners and validation of the hope that an independent Kenya would eventually emerge." —Minneapolis Star Tribune "The Ngũgĩ of Wrestling with the Devil called not just for adding a bit of color to the canon’s sagging shelf, but for abolition and upheaval." —Bookforum An unforgettable chronicle of the year the brilliant novelist and memoirist, long favored for the Nobel Prize, was thrown in a Kenyan jail without charge Wrestling with the Devil, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's powerful prison memoir, begins literally half an hour before his release on December 12, 1978. In one extended flashback he recalls the night, a year earlier, when armed police pulled him from his home and jailed him in Kenya's Kamĩtĩ Maximum Security Prison, one of the largest in Africa. There, he lives in a prison block with eighteen other political prisoners, quarantined from the general prison population. In a conscious effort to fight back the humiliation and the intended degradation of the spirit, Ngũgĩ—the world-renowned author of Weep Not, Child; Petals of Blood; and Wizard of the Crow—decides to write a novel on toilet paper, the only paper to which he has access, a book that will become his classic, Devil on the Cross. Written in the early 1980s and never before published in America, Wrestling with the Devil is Ngũgĩ's account of the drama and the challenges of writing the novel under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He captures not only the excruciating pain that comes from being cut off from his wife and children, but also the spirit of defiance that defines hope. Ultimately, Wrestling with the Devil is a testimony to the power of imagination to help humans break free of confinement, which is truly the story of all art.

Author : Charles Cantalupo
Publisher : Africa World Press
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN : 086543459X

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The World of Ngūgī Wa Thiong'o by Charles Cantalupo Pdf

Inspired by the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, this collection of twelve essays and two interviews surveys the wide variety of Ngugi's work from his earliest writings to his most recent - including essays, all his novels, and his writings for children. Also included are extensive discussions of Ngugi's writings in English and Gikuyu, his use of oral literary techniques, his tragic exile, and his revolutionary politics.

Author : Douglas Killam,Alicia L. Kerfoot
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2007-12-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780313054518

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Student Encyclopedia of African Literature by Douglas Killam,Alicia L. Kerfoot Pdf

African literature is a vast subject of growing output and interest. Written especially for students, this book selectively surveys the topic in a clear and accessible way. Included are roughly 600 alphabetically arranged entries on writers, genres, and major works. Many entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Africa is a land of contrasts and of diverse cultures and traditions. It is also a land of conflict and creativity. The literature of the continent draws upon a fascinating body of oral traditions and lore and also reflects the political turmoil of the modern world. With the increased interest in cultural diversity and the growing centrality of Africa in world politics, African literature is figuring more and more prominently in the curriculum. This book helps students learn about the African literary achievement. Written expressly for students, this book is far more accessible than other reference works on the subject. Included are nearly 600 alphabetically arranged entries on authors, such as Chinua Achebe, Athol Fugard, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, and Wole Soyinka; major works, such as Things Fall Apart and Petals of Blood; and individual genres, such as the novel, drama, and poetry. Many entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.

Author : Patrick Williams
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 0719047315

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Ngugi Wa Thiong'o by Patrick Williams Pdf

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o is one of the most important contemporary world writers--his name has for many become synonymous with cultural controversy and political struggle. Patrick William's lucid analysis offers the most up-to-date study of Ngugi's writing, including his most recent collections of essays. Focusing on important aspects of Ngugi's more obscure works, and drawing on a wide range of relevant theoretical perspectives, this study examines the growing complexity of Ngugi's accounts of the history of colonized and postcolonial Kenya.