Ngugi wa Thiong'o is an exiled Kenyan writer. Born in Kenya he was baptized as a Christian. He renounced it, even English, changed his name to ' Ngugi wa Thiong'o' and writes in his native tongue. He then translates them back himself to English. This is how his novels are published. He is also an opponent of the oppressive Kenyan government and has suffered a lot due to that. More on that later. His novels do not focus on the effect of colonization and conversion to Christianity in Africa as is the case with several African writers, but more on that post-colonial effects of them, when the tin-pot dictators take over tiny countries and let loose a reign of terror. 'Wizard Of The Crow' is not a completely heavy and tragic novel like his 'Petals Of Blood'. It is a political farce, a sprawling tragicomedy of epic proportions running to over 700 pages, full of dark humor, funny, sad and even heartbreaking at times. The novel need not be taken as an indictment of current political situation in Kenya alone, it is relevant for all places where people with power lord over those who are without it. (Heck, even a Councillor of a small place does indulge in absurdities matching up to his reputation isn't it?) What is the novel about. It is set in the imaginary country of 'Abruria'. It is being ruled by a person termed as 'The Ruler'. No one knows much else about him, expect that he has powers to do anything he wants. For instance he can even stop time. If he says a day is 'Saturday' it will remain so until he himself relents and changes it (shades of 'The Autumn Of The Patriarch' by Marquez at times). He can even simulate time. For instance he has exiled his wife to solitary confinement, since she had offended him. What has he done there? The time and the situation in that place is exactly the same as the exact moment when she offended him (i.e) the clock is always at a particular time, the rooms are in the same state, the radio plays the same song etc. The Ruler is now engaged in building the biggest tower in the world a la Tower of Babel.The main protagonist in the novel is Kamiti. He is an educated by unemployed person from one of the inner villages. During one of his interviews, he meets 'Grace' a woman with whom he strikes up a friendship. Grace is part of an underground movement which opposes the government. They try to disrupt and cause chaos by letting lose plastic snakes in a meeting and stuff like that. The Ruler wants all snakes to be banned from the country :). Slowly Kamiti gets involved with it. One day, he and Grace are being chased by government officials. Both are disguised as beggars and run from the officials. To escape, they enter an uninhabited house and take refuge there. Kamiti hangs a sign at the front of the house that says 'Warning! This property belongs to a wizard whose power brings down hawks and crows from the sky. Touch this house at your peril. Sgd. Wizard of the Crow.". This is where the novel actually starts to kick off. The government officials and other people who see this sign take it seriously and start coming to Kamiti to solve their problems. Ministers come so that they can succeed over the other ministers, business men come so that they can top their competitors, ordinary persons come for their day to day problems. For Kamiti it becomes a case of catching a tiger by the tail, he cannot let go of it and whatever solution he gives somehow seems to click and he becomes very famous. Enormous queues start to line up outside his place. Kamiti has unwittingly started something that he cannot control and that which has taken a life of its own.This sprawling novel cannot be summarized more since it would spoil the ending, but suffice to say that it has lots of twists and turns, caustic political commentary on nearly all its pages. We get an idea of the dysfunctional way in which the country is operating as we read through the novel. For e.g. there is a'Help Needed' sign put up in front of an office. Due to unemployment, people start lining up before it, after sometime, people start standing in it without even knowing that that line is for. It becomes such a huge line that it's end cannot be seen. People get lost while trying to search for it. The government instead of just dispersing the line, puts forth a news item saying that the queue is a sign of support for the Ruler. The underground movement then hijacks the idea, but organizing protests where people stand in queue to decry the government. The Ruler then banks 'queues' everywhere, which as we can infer causes a lot of problems. There cannot be queues for buses, stalls etc. People have to be standing in random and when a bus comes they just have to get into it as quickly as possible. Ngugi wa Thiong'o has suffered a lot at the hands of the government and has been writing against all odds. His novel T'he Devil on the Cross' was written in toilet paper while in prison. When he and his wife came back to Kenya some years ago after their exile, his wife was sexually assaulted by some unidentified persons, ostensibly at the orders of the government. With so much suffering, it would be perfectly normal if a person turns cynical. But no, Ngugi wa Thiong'o has not become fully cynical, he has not lost his sense of humor, Wizard Of the Crow has a lot of dark humor, but is never heavy, cynical or gives an impression of being world weary. It is almost as if all his suffering and pain has been channelled into this terrible, funny farce for all ages. For that alone Ngugi wa Thiong'o deserves the greatest respect. In a world where a lot of writers live in pretty comfortable conditions, in a fairly democratic set up and decry their governments, here is a man who has faced the utmost adversity and has always held his head high, always fighting against it. If you come across his books, don't hesitate buy it.Ngugi wa Thiong'o was one of the contenders for this year's Nobel prize along with Mario Vargas Losa and Cormac McCarthy. All there were deserving candidates, but Mario won this year. Well, here's hoping that Ngugi wa Thiong'o wins it in the future and reaches a far wider audience. His life and his works deserve a much wider appreciation.
There are quite a few legends in this world. One of the oldest tells of how the people of Babylon decided to build a tower all the way up to Heaven. But to no one’s great surprise, The Lord disapproved, and not only did he tear the tower down but by making everyone speak different languages he also made sure that nothing like it would ever happen again.Bah humbug, says the dictator of the compleeetely fictional African country of Aburiria (really, it has absolutely nothing to do with wa Thiong'o's native Kenya. Really.) He’s ruled the country with an iron fist almost since the day the English left, he’s both the ruler and the lord of everyone, and nobody’s going to tell him that there are limits to his power. No, he’s going to build a modern Tower of Babel and march all the way to the stars to show the world that Africa can do things the West can’t even imagine. All he needs to get it going is to a) use both whips and carrots to convince the people that this is much more important than nonsense such as democracy, jobs and food, and b) convince the World Bank to finance it since Aburiria doesn’t actually have much money of its own. How difficult can it be? Thanks to the English language there’s a common lingua franca again, just like back in the day, and in these neo-colonialist days borrowing money shouldn’t be a problem as long as you’re prepared to pay interest. As one character notes, it's funny how "independence" came to mean "dependence."But of course, the Ruler hasn’t taken the wizard of the book’s title into account. Which is one of the few things he can be excused for, since the wizard hasn’t taken himself into account either; he’s just an out-of-work academic who, while running from the police together with a woman from the resistance, makes up a story based on an old folk tale to make himself scarier than he really is. But before he knows it, the legend of the magic of the crow has spread and everyone – politicians, businessmen and the huddled masses – want his help to get ahead in the world. And somewhere around that time the magic, which began as a hoax, starts to gather real power.wa Thiong’o’s huge novel has enough dashes of magical realism and modern-day fairytale to be compared to both Márquez and Rushdie (as indeed it has), but for my part, I keep thinking that this is more like an African take on Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita. It’s got the same wildly disrespectful and bawdy sense of humour, coupled with a pissed-off, clear-sighted social critique that seems to want to kick over the whole damn tower of power hunger, nepotism, sexism, racism and faceless structures, all set to notes of both ancient myths and modern thinking that sometimes collides wildly and sometimes fuses into something completely new.For a parallel, consider this. A somewhat younger legend than the Tower of Babel concerns Great Zimbabwe, the very real and ancient stone city in Southern Africa, which the newly colonized Africans back in the day claimed to be have been built by their ancestors. Their new rulers, of course, laughed at this idea (even when their own archaelogists confirmed it); since the white race was superior, something this big must have been built by white people, ergo they were simply reclaiming their rights to rule Africa. The logic of the victorious can often seem a bit weird in hindsight, when all the evidence has been twisted to serve the purpose of the one with the power to enforce his interpretation on others.Aburiria is clearly based on Kenya and the Ruler on Daniel Arap Moi, but Wizard of the Crow is bigger than that; it’s a furious satire on all sorts of oppression, whether based on political, economical or physical power, and the Ruler echoes both Pinochet, Honecker and Putin. The West uses Africa, whose dictators use the military and police to use the people, where the men turn to the only outlet that remains and use the women. Lick up, kick down, shit flows downhill. wa Thiong’o constantly plays around with language; hardly a surprise, since he was one of the first African writers to refuse to write in English and instead write in his native tongue – something which cost him a year in jail and eventually exile when the regime didn’t like what he wrote. The value of language seeps through everything here; all old sayings, Bible verses, and English platitudes are twisted by those in power until the language itself becomes a trap the powerless must find their way out of. (In one scene, our hero remembers an old girlfriend who told him the story of how Jesus asked his disciples to become fishers of men – only to spot her on a street corner in a miniskirt, wasting away from HIV, still fishing for men. On a lighter note, there’s a misquote of Descartes that eventually turns into a linguistic virus that almost overthrows the government by itself.) And the way out turns out to be through storytelling; the legend of the people’s wizard, who can hold up a mirror and change the world, causing those in power to panic and become ever more paranoid. Just like in Bulgakov everything turns upside down, roles reverse and re-reverse, laughter goes from the bitter to the uproarious and back. wa Thiong’o’s language is a fantastic mix of colourful folk tale and modern novel, complex without being too complicated, hilarious without dropping its serious undertone, and it’s one of the most rewarding novels I’ve read all year. At 768 pages it might be a bit longer than it needs to be, but even the bits that aren't strictly necessary are simply too much fun to want gone.The world keeps creating new legends, and they don’t necessarily need to be true to be strong enough to tear down towers. One of the newest is about an African grass roots movement where men and women work as equals, unite old truths with education and new ideas and only demand to control their own future. I don’t know how true that one is or can be, but it makes a cracking good read.
What do You think about Wizard Of The Crow (2006)?
I am only half way through this 770 page book and while I enjoy the writing style I think it would have been better as a 300 pager. I like the magical realism and satirical writing, but I am sick of being beat over the head with the idea that everyone is greedy. There is very little description of the physical landscape of the city where the book takes place and it makes the the story seem as though it could have happened almost anywhere. While this may be good for some stories, I miss it in this one. It is a funny book and perhaps I should like it better if it were read aloud.
—Metthea
I read about this satirical book in the Wall Street Journal and was curious. It was on display at the library and I was shocked at how long it is, 765 pages and it is worth the read. The book satirizes and essentializes post-colonial African politics in a fable like story. The whole book is filled with lessons about government corruption, overcoming patriarchy, and the complexity of racial and economic relationships. The hero and heroine Kamiti and Nywira are righteous and lovable rebels who use trickery to gain power and respect.Kamiti and Nyawira create a stir in Abururia, the fictional African country where the book is set, by posing as the Wizard of the Crow, an all-knowing wizard that can cure ailments. Using their insight and intelligence they tell people clever observations and advice to help make their lives better and for this they are considered magical. They tell one wealthy patron who just received a contract with the government that his sickness is caused by "White-Ache" an ailment that makes him wish he was white so he could be even more powerful in the eyes of the world.The depiction of government corruption was alarming because it is so prevalent throughout the story and sadly makes it more noticeable in current events. Unfortunately, the relationship between politicians and contractors are often tight and not based on merits and the way to win favor is by praising the ruler and not by integrity. And as the curtain gets unveiled to the corruption the Ruler of Abruria decides to make nominal changes to maintain support of the Global Bank- a common strategy of reform.Although the characters are all caricatures, I am glad that Kamiti and Nyawira are so compassionate and brave. They make the journey through such a messed up political structure bearable and as the Wizard of the Crow very insightful and amusing. Nyawira is an organizer in the People's Resistance Army and Kamiti is an herbal healer.I think the Wizard of the Crow should become a new symbol of resistance- sort of like the V for Vendetta mask. In the book we are shown that, "Knowledge is the discovery of the magic of the ordinary. Like words put into song." The Wizard of the Crow puts the magic in the ordinary- especially when the ordinary is corrupt and misguided.
—David
In Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi wa Thiong'o complained that African neo-colonial leaders behave so ridiculously that it's hard to satirise them (similarly, my Dad recently quoted to me from an interview about Bremner Bird & Fortune 'it's getting easier to make fun of politicians. Lots of our later sketches mainly consisted of reading out government policy') but he manages to do it here to painfully funny effect. At the same time he completely demystifies power by revealing the thought processes of the Ruler and his scheming ministers.I remember reading in Decolonising the Mind about how his books were read by the Kenyan people he wanted to reach once he started writing in Gikuyu. Since in many villages literacy was not widespread, literate folks would read aloud in public places like bars. The whole time I was reading, I was imagining that space, where newcomers would need to ask questions and be appraised of background detail; where someone would forget an earlier plot point and explanations would be necessary, where jokes were repeated and howled over, and where politics expanded into discussion.Of course, Ngugi wa Thiong’o has translated his own book (affirming his expression of hope in Decolonising the Mind that the art of translation would help him continue dialogue with people everywhere), so it’s perfectly expressive, but the translated-ness has its own interesting consequences for how the book’s humour works. More than that, it provokes me to mindfulness of the Kenyan village & the knowledge that he wrote this book for the people there first, and for me last. And I love this, that my gaze is the least relevant, the humblest. In reading The Famished Road, I felt Ben Okri created an inhospitable surface to break the colonising gaze of Whiteness (of course, that probably wasn’t his intent at all!), but in Wizard of the Crow there is no such disruptive confrontation – I simply feel myself a benign eavesdropper listening at the back, hearing imperfectly, missing some references.On references though, Ngugi wa Thiong’o doesn’t assume much prior knowledge; he takes care to contextualise and inform about things he wants to bring into the tale, like the Ramayana. The experience he assumes familiarity with to play on is of living in a neo-colonial state under the gaze of a one-track international media. He shows a lot of love to fellow writers, placing literature as a source of knowledge and wisdom among folktales, songs, proverbs and political analyses. It’s extra nice that African and Indian women novelists are mentioned; in such a strongly feminist book, it’s super of Ngugi to send the reader to hear from the horse’s mouth. The role of White Euro-American influence, gaze and individuals is sent up exquisitely. I particularly love this quote about an organized political process made by a group of women: Some foreign diplomats laughed out loud, thinking that this was a humorous native dance, but when they saw that state officials and ministers were not laughing, they restrained themselves and assumed that, pornographic as the act might have seemed, it was actually a solemn native dance. Some of the White people have ridiculous names; (sweet revenge?) Gabriel Gemstone is my favourite. For all the broad strokes though it’s full of subtlety. The Ruler calls the Global Bank officials racists because they deny a loan request, but himself articulates all manner of vile anti-Blackness.One of my students asked me what this book was about and I said ‘it’s about a very clever, brave woman and a very kind, spiritual man’. It’s about so much more than the central couple, but I love how they complement, balance and complete each other. I also loved the ideas about renewal and healing in nature, self-awareness, contemplation and visionary exploration. I can honestly say that every time I opened this epic I entered book heaven. It was never hard going, never dull, always delightful and enthralling.If there were no beggars in the streets, tourists might start doubting that Aburiria was an authentic African country[the Ruler] was baffled by anyone not motivated by greed. he could never understand the type who talked of collective salvation instead of personal survival. how was one supposed to deal with these recalcitrants? a fisherman puts a work at the end of the line, but if the fish ignores it, how is the fisherman to catch the fish?
—Zanna
