Wizard of the Crow - Hardcover

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 037542248X ISBN 13: 9780375422485

Publisher: Pantheon Books, 2006

Synopsis

From the exiled Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and literary critic--a magisterial comic novel that is certain to take its place as a landmark of postcolonial African literature.

In exile now for more than twenty years, Ngugl wa Thiong’o has become one of the most widely read African writers of our time, the power and scope of his work garnering him international attention and praise. His aim in Wizard of the Crow is, in his own words,nothing less than “to sum up Africa of the twentieth century in the context of two thousand years of world history.”

Commencing in “our times” and set in the “Free Republic of Aburlria,” the novel dramatizes with corrosive humor and keenness of observation a battle for control of the souls of the Aburlrian people. Among the contenders: His High Mighty Excellency; the eponymous Wizard, an avatar of folklore and wisdom; the corrupt Christian Ministry; and the nefarious Global Bank. Fashioning the stories of the powerful and the ordinary into a dazzling mosaic, Wizard of the Crow reveals humanity in all its endlessly surprising complexity.

Informed by richly enigmatic traditional African storytelling, Wizard of the Crow is a masterpiece, the crowning achievement in Ngugl wa Thiong’o’s career thus far.

About this title

Review:

"Unreservedly a masterpiece" (Scotland on Sunday)

"A huge, comic novel... A shimmering, shifting discourse... mythological but also cheerfully disenchanted; political and playful; cartoonish but also epical... the African novel may well have delivered its greatest masterpiece" (Brian Morton Sunday Herald)

"Epic....daring satire" (Sunday Times)

"Fantastic" (John Updike)

"Truly exciting... the author is a master of farce" (Daily Telegraph)

From the Publisher:

A magisterial comic novel that is certain to take its place as a landmark of postcolonial African Literature from the exiled Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and literary critic

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 037542248X
• ISBN 13: 9780375422485
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 800