Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo

Wizard of the Crow Reviews

• 
  leynes

  In the life of a bookworm, there's no greater feeling than finishing a chunker of a book and ending up enjoying it immensely. It's also rare to encounter a tale that is so unconventional and new that is must be described as a revelation. I am incredibly happy that I finally got around to reading Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. I was reminded of this book last fall when I attended a lecture of Ngũgĩ's son. Since then I've been dying to pick up his work.
  
  To understand African literature, when you're coming from a Western point of view, it is important to keep the social and political context of the stories at hand in mind. Personally, I was not very knowledgeable when it came to Kenya as a country and its government and people before jumping into this book. However, having done some research now, I think it is absolutely quintessential to at least know the bare structure of Ngũgĩ's life and what he suffered through to become the writer he is today.

  “History, particularly African history, was the scene of many crimes with many conflicting witnesses.”

  In 1977, Ngũgĩ embarked upon a new form of theatre in Kenya that sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances. In 1978, one of his theatre productions was shut down by the authoritarian Kenyan regime and Ngũgĩ was subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, the artist was released from prison, and fled Kenya.
  
  On 8 August 2004, Ngũgĩ returned to Kenya as part of a month-long tour of East Africa. On 11 August, robbers broke into his high-security apartment: they assaulted Ngũgĩ, sexually assaulted his wife and stole various items of value. It is in this grim context that we must place the late writing stages of Wizard of the Crow and its publication in the US in the summer of 2006. After his imprisonment, 30 years earlier, Ngũgĩ decided that all of his creative writing would be in Gikuyu, his mother tongue. He is one of the few African writers who break with the tradition of writing in the language of the coloniser. The original Gikuyu edition of Wizard of the Crow has sold well in local terms: 1,500 copies within a year, some read aloud in bars and matatus (a local type of taxi).
  
  It is important to note that this book joins other Kenyan tales as told by local people. In contrast to the Western written tradition, the African tradition of storytelling is an oral one. There aren't many scene settings or descriptions to be found in this text; it almost reads like a screen-play. A lot of the action is advanced through dialogue rather than through description. In Ngũgĩ's own words: “Multi-narrative lines and multi-viewpoints unfolding at different times and spaces replace the linear temporal unfolding of the plot from a single viewpoint.” It's interesting to note that there is a wide net of many different characters, none of which are more important than another. This story doesn't have a single protagonist, all POVs are woven equally into the narrative. Everyone is weighing in and giving their perspective on the happenings of the story.
  
  But this is not a typical story that may be told around a camp-fire, “this is a book about choosing sides.” It is a piece of activism that calls out to the people in Africa to rise up and demand better governing. In this way, the form and structure of the book really mirror Ngũgĩ's intention. He stresses that in African societies only one viewpoint is allowed: that of the Ruler. Ngũgĩ breaks with that tradition by giving everyone a voice in his story. Beggars, police officers, women ... everyone's voice is raised up.
  
  The story is set in the imaginary Free Republic of Aburĩria, autocratically governed by one man, known only as the Ruler; a character which is most likely modelled after modelled after Daniel arap Moi, former Kenyan politician who served as the second President of Kenya from 1978 to 2002. Through popular agitation and external pressures, he was forced to allow multiparty elections in 1991; he led his party, KANU, to victory in the 1992 and 1997 elections. The Ruler is destroying the country due to his complete disregard of the people he governs. Standing in opposition to him is the Movement for the Voice of the People (with Nyawĩra as their leader).
  
  In the first part of this story, the ruler decrees that a great monument shall be build in his honor. He envisions a staircase to heaven; a building that will be so tall that he will be able to communicate with God himself. A monument that shall outshine the pyramids and the Great Wall of China. The project is given the name Marching to Heaven and is often referred to as a modern Tower of Babel. In general, there is a lot of Christian symbolism in this story as Kenya's population is in majority of Christian faith, even though Ngũgĩ himself rejects the religion of the colonizer.
  
  The Ruler, however, has one problem: he doesn't have any money to build this monument, so he has to ask the Global Bank for a loan. Much of the story preoccupies itself with the Ruler and his ministers trying to get that money, whilst also trying to stay on top with all of the petty and deceitful in-fighting going on within the government. It's about the rivalry between the ministers; it is a tale in which everyone's singing the Ruler's praises by day and plotting a downfall by night. It is a tale of corruption and the horrible truths behind postcolonial African governments. (“The new leaders, just because their skin color had changed, their outlook on how to govern had not.”)
  
  Ngũgĩ shows the problem (the mess, really) that African governments have put their people in, by only having their own interest in mind. The Ruler famously declares: “Every Aburĩrian child knows that I am the Country and the Country is Me.” He forbids criticism in any shape or form. When his wife challenges him after finding out that he is having sex with young school girls and thus is impacting the future of the country in a negative way, the Ruler imprisons her in a house where time literally stands still. His wife is only allowed to wear the same clothes and eat the same food of the day she dared to question him. Throughout the narrative, however, it becomes clear that the Ruler isn't as much in control as he wants to be: he doesn't control he Voice of the People, the Global Bank and Western governments, his own health .. and he, in fact, does not control his wife's tears, who refuses to break down and give him that satisfaction. (Go Rachael!)
  
  Ngũgĩ also shows that the masses of the people are the ones who have to suffer and pay the price for their inept government. Just to give you a taste of Kenyan governmental priorities: In January 2018, there was a terrible fire in Nairobi during which at least 6000 people lost their homes. The fire engines that came quickly ran out of water and there was no way to successfully stop the fire. The government refused to take on any blame, claiming that they couldn't do anything because "there was no water." In the same month, the police repeatedly dispersed protests of the people with water hoses. And guess what? They never ran out of water. So, there is no water to protect the people, their lives and their properties but plenty of water to try to disperse people who are opposing the government.

  “Tajirika’s rot proved more terrible than any that I had experienced before: a black man celebrating the negation of himself.”

  Ngũgĩ also gives an answer to how African countries got into the mess that there in. To sum it up in one word: colonialism. Through the fictional illness of “white ache”, Ngũgĩ depicts the struggle and internal conflict that many African politicians “want to be white”, they want to adhere to the Western standard, they want to become rich. They change their Gikuyu names for English ones (so Tajirika becomes Titus), they negate their mother tongues for the language of the colonizer. Ngũgĩ's portrayal of Western media and governments is harsh but fair: ignorant vultures who are just in it for their own advantages in the form of resources.

  “We are trying to imagine a different future for Aburĩria after the people united take power from these ogres.”

  So where do we go from here? Through the characters of Kamĩtĩ and Nyawĩra, who both pose as the Wizard of the Crow, the self-proclaimed “postcolonial witch doctor”, Ngũgĩ transports the message that is closest to his heart: Black people should unite their forces and their values, and go back to the old ways, before colonialism corrupted the country. Ngũgĩ is well aware that not everything was nice and shiny back then, and certain values should be replaced by more progressive ones (especially when it comes to the position of women in society); but Africa will gain nothing by letting the West rob them of their resources, while being preoccupied with petty fights between different ethnic groups and self-destruction from within. He critiques colonialism as having destroyed a culture and the spirit of the people. “It’s not just white people who know logic. We too have logic, black logic found in our proverbs.” He wants African to rediscover the value of their roots.

  “The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress.”

  I especially liked that his story was so focused on giving everyone a voice and improving the life of all the people. Wizard of the Crow is probably one of the most progressive and feminist texts of the postcolonial era that I ever read. Ngũgĩ is very outspoken on the rights of women (“The silence of women in the face of male violence is the nursemaid of more violence.”, “Rape is rape, even when done by. A friend or a husband.”) and his story features many strong female characters; not just women who are politically active like Nyawĩra, but also wives and daughters, who oppose the patriarchal structures of their homes. He calls out toxic masculinity (“Violence against women bedevils many a home–rich, poor, white, balck, religious. In the world today, a husband measures his maleness by mauling his wife.”) and the danger is poses when men measure their greatness by the weakness of women. Overall, he takes a very firm stand against domestic violence and advocates for the equality of all genders.
  
  Wizard of the Crow has a bittersweet ending, one in which there is a regime change ... that ends up being not much of a change at all. Even if you wrap it up in the mantle of something that you call “democracy”, the plight of the people remains the same. And even though Nyawĩra and Kamĩtĩ no longer pose as the Wizard of the Crow, they continue to be politically active within the Movement of the Voice of the People: “Anything pointing to people being able to unite across race and ethnic lines is suppressed so that people may not realize the sources of their strength and power.”
  
  Even though Ngũgĩ gives the solution to the problems he sees with current African governments, their implementation is easier written down than actually carried out. The idea of a one nation state with one language is a colonial concept. If Ngũgĩ wants African countries to go back to the pre-colonial era, the problem of petty in-fights between ethnic groups still remains. Furthermore, apart from the language of the colonizer there isn't another dominant language in most African countries. Even in Ngũgĩ's case, writing in Gikuyu does indeed separate the novel from its colonial past, however, the Gikuyu people are currently in power in Kenya whilst other ethnic groups are at a disadvantage. So the question arises if you can unify people if they don't have a common language? And should one ethnic group assume power over another?
  
  All in all, Wizard of the Crow is a thought-provoking tale that I will never forget for the rest of my life. It is such an important document of Africa's postcolonial history. It is an incredibly well-written political satire, that will make you laugh and cry at the same time. I will leave you with a quintessential quote from the beginning of the book: “I am human, I am a human being, a soul, and not a piece of garbage, no matter how poor and ragged I look, and I deserve respect.”
• 
  Hugh

  This is a monumental, epic book that encompasses most of Africa's post-colonial history, and one which I feel hopelessly unqualified to review.
  
  It was originally written in the Gĩkũyũ language, for local consumption in Kenya, and was translated into English by the author himself. It is an outrageous mixture of fantasy, farce and social commentary which draws on history, religion and local mythology. At different times I was reminded of Bulgakov, Rushdie and Marquez, but it occupies a truly unique space of its own. It is surprisingly easy to read for such a big complex book and is often very funny.
  
  At its heart is the fictional Free Republic of Aburĩria, which has been ruled seemingly in perpetuity by a brutal despot known simply as The Ruler. From the start it becomes clear that there are outrageous and supernatural elements at play. The Ruler's principal advisers are Machokali, whose eyes have been surgically enlarged for his role as the eyes of the ruler, and Sikiokuu, who has done something similar with his ears. Their latest scheme to aggrandise the Ruler is a grandiose project called Marching to Heaven, which involves building a new wonder of the world, a tower to surpass the Biblical Tower of Babel, and the building project aims to draw funding from the Global Bank.
  
  Meanwhile a young man Kamĩtĩ is trying to find a job after returning from India with a degree. In the process, he meets Nyawĩra, who is working as a secretary for a construction company run by Titus Tajirika, but is also involved in a resistance group largely composed of women. While they are fleeing from police after a demonstration, Kamĩtĩ successfully reinvents himself as The Wizard of the Crow.
  
  This is just the start of an epic good and evil struggle, full of outrageous imagination.
  
  Thiong'o never entirely loses track of the hope that Africa's corrupt elites can be defeated by the unified will of its people. The storytelling owes much to local narrative traditions and normal ideas of what is plausible and rational do not apply, but at the core is a strong moral parable and some telling ideas on the sources of Africa's problems and its perennial exploitation by the Western powers and particularly America.
  
  Thanks to The Mookse and the Gripes group, whose inclusion of this book in their Mookse Madness discussion/competition earlier this year prompted me to read it. A unique and powerful book, and one I expect to remember long after reading it.
• 
  Zanna

  In
  Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, 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?
• 
  Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer

  Epic, satirical, magical-realism account of the fictional African country of Aburiria. Aburiria is an African dictatorship run by a typical African big-man “The Ruler” whose control over the country remains strong but who increasingly struggles to find his way in a post Cold-War world where his previous allies in the West now criticise the very actions for which he was once praised and who increasingly finds himself a puppet of the American led Global Bank. He is surrounded by sycophantic ministers – the two most prominent of which had plastic surgery – Machokali with eyes "enlarged to the size of electric bulbs", Sikiokuu with ears "larger than a rabbit's" (both the better to spy on the Ruler’s enemies). Meanwhile beneath them there is a struggle for power, influence and the money (especially Dollars) that this brings in the ability to request bribes.
  
  Kamiti is an unemployed graduate and herbal healer with a nose sensitive to the stench of corruption. At the start of the book he is lying on a garbage heap, having an out-of-body experience as a bird. Trash collectors mistake him for a corpse and are terrified when the dead apparently arises and believe him to be the Devil (a misunderstanding which continues throughout the novel – each of which section headings is about a different form of Daemon).
  
  Kamiti applies for a job at the Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate company, where he encounters the beautiful Nyawira but is humiliated by her boss, Titus Tajirika. Deciding to give up his job search and resorts to begging outside a meeting between the Ruler and the Global Bank to discuss the plans proposed by the sycophantic ministers to erect a modern day Tower of Babel. Chased by a policeman AG he and another beggar take refuse in her house for him to discover the other beggar is Nyawira who was part of a group of protestors disguised as beggars from the underground Movement for the Voice of the People.
  
  Kamiti scares away the policeman by putting a charm outside the house and a note saying it belongs to the terrible “Wizard of the Crow” only to find that the policeman returns seeking help from the wizard and then publicises what he sees as the Wizard’s incredible powers (AG’s later bar-stories of the various happenings of the time of the book are a constant source of narrative through the story).
  
  Kamiti and Nyawari between them assume the identity of the Wizard all the time struggling between them over the best way to cure the country. A main theme of the book is language and identity (particularly the way in which the West did and continues to steal the identity of Black Africans). The book sets out to sum up Africa of the 20th century in the context of world history.
  
  The central themes of the book are summed up in Kamiti’s musings following a vision where he traced the history and sources of black power, and incidentally gave rise to rumours that the Ruler is pregnant – which the Ruler turns around to claiming that he has given birth to Baby Democracy (a Multi-party democracy with he as the head of each party).

  Around the 17th century Europe impregnated ... Africa with its evil ... (giving) birth to the slave driver of the slave plantation, who mutated into the colonial driver of the colonial plantation, who years later mutated into the neocolonial pilots of the postcolonial plantation ... So I said to myself: Just as today is born of the womb of yesterday, today is pregnant with tomorrow. What kind of tomorrow was Aburiria pregnant with? Of unity or murderous divisions? Of cries or laughter? Our tomorrow is determined by what we do today. Our fate is in our hands.

  
  
  The book is similar in approach to
  Midnight's Children – with physical manifestations of the characters standing for political issues or events.
  
  The book is definitely easier to read than Rushdie, despite its length: mainly as it is based on a series of short chapters and was originally designed to be performed aloud in a native African language and was then translated by the author to English (so that as English readers we receive the author's voice directly).
  
  Overall an excellent even outstanding read.
• 
  Cheryl

  While I enjoyed the first part of this satire of political unrest, economic hypocrisy and social upheaval, I was distracted by too much going on: too many pages, characters, sub stories, and more. Three hundred pages in and it was all so much, that I couldn't stay with Kamiti as he morphed from graduate student, to unemployed man, then homeless beggar, and then Wizard of the Crow. I wondered if a few more pages could have been edited out, the narrative arc tightened, and the country…well, which African country is it, for Africa is too big a continent to tackle in one novel, as the blurb on my hardcover copy suggests. Admittedly, I'm a fan of Wa Thiong'o's; I found his memoir,
  Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir, singular and stunning. Yet while I'm grateful that he is a feminist who in his fictional plot has reminded me to reread African women writers like Emecheta and Dangaremgba, and to try Indian women writers like Arundhati Roy and Meena Alexander, I do think it best that I save this book until the time when I can truly appreciate its ambitious sprawl. For now, I'll look for a shorter Thiong'o read.
• 
  Nathan "N.R." Gaddis

  If you love Dictator Novels you'll love this one.
  
  Also, there's just not that many long books I've come across from the African Continent. There's The City of God of course, but that's not really what we're talking about. So of course you offer me an 800 page brick of a book from The Continent, sure, I'm going to go after it. And in a day and an age like this, if you reside in the USofA and you're curious about LeClair's call for a Rump=Age novel, well, here you'll have a pretty good model to work from. Because of course the problem is, How to write an over the top satire of Evil when Evil is already so over=the=top self=satirizing. [given how RealPolitik concludes this novel however it's not all just a question of over the top Evil, but also of banal NeoEvil politics]
  
  At any rate, to make a distinction, I find in my reading of BIG books there's a difference between the FAT and the simply long/KittenSquisher/Chunkster. FAT is a lot of languagelanguagelanguage on a lot of pages. Simply long/etc of course is just a lot of pages, and if the book is good, a lot of storystorystory. FAT is like
  Fado Alexandrino, only five hundred pages but two weeks' of reading. Long is a lot of what I've been reading recently ; this,
  In the Eye of the Sun,
  We, the Drowned. 800 pages, sure, but reads like a breeze, the reading mind forging ahead of the words rather than trailing behind trying to catch up with syntax with rhythms melodies jokes allusions. FAT books usually elude your easily capturing the What I'm About ; the long have a thesis readily stateable.
  
  At any rate, whaddya know, when I opened my daily opening of aldaily, there right at the top was this piece on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. How's that for timing? ::
  
  "Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the Tyranny of Language"
  by Francis Wade
  
  https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/08...
  
  
  Reviewed ::
  "Decolonise the mind :: Maya Jaggi applauds a vivid satire on an African kleptocracy from Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow"
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
  
  Reviewed again ::
  "The Strongman’s Weakness"
  By Jeff Turrentine
  
  https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/bo...
  
  Again Reviewed ::
  "Yes, that’s right, fun. You might be thinking: “a 700-page novel about an oppressed African nation from a professor of English literature who was himself exiled; must be one of those highfalutin dutiful reads full of clever turns of phrase and onion layers of symbolism that you fight through like quicksand so that you can finally achieve some understanding of its Meaningful Message about the Human Experience, or maybe just feel self-righteous for finishing it, right?” Well, let’s just shelve that attitude right there. Wizard of the Crow is part satire, part comedy, part farce, and wholly absurd. It is an angry book, yes, but even at its most furious, it is never not funny."
  
  https://www.tor.com/2009/10/20/fury-a...
  
  And what nr=non=Review would be complete without the complete review?
  "....the result is a surprisingly breezy read that's enormously entertaining and almost incidentally provides a broad picture of the African condition in the early 21st century."
  
  http://www.complete-review.com/review...
  
• 
  K.J. Charles

  Absolutely epic. A 900pp sprawling monster of a book that takes on colonisation, corruption, superstition, greed, social/cultural problems and everything people use to screw each other up, all without ever losing hope or sight of a better way. Translated by the Kenyan author from his native language. It features a hero who accidentally becomes a postcolonial witch doctor, and a heroine whose urban efforts to resist the Daniel Arap Moi-ish dictator take a turn. Lots of turns are taken, as the farcical but terrifying Ruler and his team of lackeys (all of them professing endless loyalty while eyeing the throne) go through surreal contortions of abuse of power.
  
  It is not a summarisable book. Highlights include the sequence where a man holds an army camp not at gunpoint but at "shit-point" (really need to read it to get that one); the incapacitating attacks of "white-ache" suffered by the kleptocratic profiteers lost in longing for how much more they could profit and how much more power they could command if they were white; the Ruler's announcement of a new policy of Corporonialism, or corporate colonialism, which...is happening now, oops.
  
  A strongly feminist book with a powerful range of female characters and a crunching indictment of culturally mandated abuse of women, which models a terrific, mutually respectful relationship at the centre while allowing the MCs to be flawed. A magnificent read, I loved it.
• 
  Nnedi

  Best book ever.
• 
  Margitte

  Wizard of the Crow
  
  FROM THE BLURB
  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 Aburirian 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."
  
  To make sense of the book I had to list the characters as they appeared in this geopolitical satire. There is a vast cast of characters, but the most important ones, including the main, as well as supporting personalities, are mentioned here.
  
  1)The angry Second Ruler of the Free Republic of Aburiria, the Father of the Nation,
  2)Rachel his wife - locked up in solitary confinement
  3)His four sons:
  Rueben Kucera: three-star general in the army;
  Samwel Moya: two-star general;
  Dickens Soi: one-star general;
  Richard Runyenje: army captain.
  They were all on the board of directors of several parastatals closely linked to foreign companies, particularly those involved in the exploration of oil and the mining of precious minerals. They were also on several licensing boards.
  
  The chambers of the State house-the walls and ceilings- were made from the skeletons of the students, teachers, workers, and small farmers he(the Ruler) had killed in all the regions of the country, for it was well known that he came into power with flaming swords, the bodies of his victims falling down to his left and right like banana trunks. The skulls of his most hated enemies hung on the walls and others from the ceiling, bone sculptures, white memories of victory and defeat.
  
  4) Dr. Wilfred Kaboca: his personal physician,
  5)Markus Machokali: Minister of Foreign Affairs - cosmetically enlarged gigantic eyes, the size of electric bulbs - to enable him to spot The Ruler's enemies, no matter where they hid; The Ruler's Eye.
  6)Silver Sikiokuu-Minister of State - with the cosmetically enlarged ears, larger than a rabbit's, with which he could hear all conversations in the country: M5, the spying ring, was under his directions. The Ruler's Ear.
  7) Benjamin Mambo - Minister of defense: his tongue cosmetically elongated, looking like a dog's, so that he could echo the Ruler's commands to the soldiers, or threats to enemies before they could reach the borders of the country. His new name would be Big Ben, now the minister of information, due to a slight misunderstanding with the cosmetic surgeon and the outcome of the surgery.
  8)Dr. Yunice Immaculate Mgenzi (formerly known as Dr. Yunity Mgeuzi-Bila-Shaka): second deputy to the amabassador in Washington. Information officer(read spy).
  8)Kamïtï wa Karïmïri( Comet Kamïtï): BA and MBA degreed, jobless, homeless and hungry, who would become the Wizard of the Crow
  9)Grace(Engenethi) Nyawïra: Member of the underground Movement for the Voice of the People.
  10) Her ex-husband Kaniürü: work as a teacher at the Ruler's Polytechnic at Eldares; member of the Ruler's glorious youth wing.
  11) Dr. Luminous Karamu-Mbuya-Ituïka: The Ruler's biographer. He was appointed to protect the country against malicious rumormongers, so-called historians, and novelists, and to counter their lies and distortions. The Ruler's biography , according to the Ruler, was the true history of the country. One historian, who dared to publish a book called People Make History, Then Ruler Makes It His Story was jailed for ten years without trial, together with hundreds of political prisoners, and a few authors and journalists.
  12) Maritha and Mariko - faithful church members of All Saints Church.
  13) Titus Tajirika - Chairman of the Building Commitee. Shook the Ruler's hand and decided never to wash the hand again. CEO of the Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate company.
  14) His wife: Vinjinia. His children three boys, two girls. P.140
  15) Arigaigai Gathere(A.G.) - policemen who spun tales - member of the special forces of the Ruler who was intent in capturing the Wizard of the Crow. He would become an important narrator in the book.
  
  The nation's birthday gift to the Ruler, was the Marching to Heaven project.

  Aburiria could now do what the Israelis could not do: raise a building to the very gates of Heaven so that the Ruler could call on God daily to say good morning or good evening or simply how was your day today, God ...?
  
  Minster Machokali was waxing ecstatic about how the benefits of the project could trickle down to all citizens. Once the project was completed, no historian would ever again talk about any other wonders in the world, for the fame of this Modern House of Babel would dwarf the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Egyptian pyramids, the Astecan Tenochtitlan, or the Great Wall of China. And who would ever talk about the Tah Mahal?

  According to Minister Machokali, nothing would ever come close to this building such as had never seen before in human history, except once by the children of Israel, and even they had failed miserably to complete the House of Babel.
  
  Praise thundered down on the crowd at the Ruler's birthday bash. Even the old men wanted to praise the Ruler, as one old senior citizen tried when it was his turn at the microphone.

  ...it was clear that he had difficulty in pronouncing Swahili words for the Ruler, Mtukufu Rais, calling out instead, Mtukutu Rahisi. Horrified at the Ruler's being called a Cheap Excellency, one of the policeman quickly whispered in the old man's ear that the phrase was Mtukufu Rais or Rais Mtukufu, which confused him even more. Coughing and clearing his throat to himself, he called out into the microphone, Rahisi Mkundu. Oh no, no, it is not Cheap Arsehole, the other policeman whispered in the other ear, no, no, it is His Holy Mightiness, Mtukufu Takatifu, which did not help matters because the old man said, with what the old man thought was confidence, Mkundu Takatifu. At the mention of "His Holy Arsehole," the multitude broke out in hilarious laughter, which made the old man forget what he wanted to say, and he stuck religiously to the phrase Rahisi Mkundu, which made Machokali quickly signal that he be removed from the microphone. The old man did not understand why he was not being allowed to speak, and, as he was led back into the crowd, he let out a stream of Rahisi Mkundu, Mtukutu Takatifu Mtukutu, any combination of cheap and holy arsehole he thought might work, gesturing toward the Ruler as if begging for his divine intervention.

  
  
  The story is told by the different characters, repeating the same event from different angles. It serves as a way of introducing the characters and building them as the story unfolds.
  
  Tongue-in-cheek, the author jerks the chains of the world, Africa, politicians, philosophies, politics, religion and cultures. Nobody escapes his observations.

  Sometimes the police raided the beggars, but just for show, for Aburiria's prisons were already full. Most beggars would have been quite happy to be jailed for the meal and a bed. The governments also had to be mindful not to upset tourism by sweeping too many beggars off the streets. Pictures of beggars or wild animals were what many tourists sent back home as proof of having been in Africa. In Aburiria, wild animals were becoming rare because of dwindling forests and poaching, and tourist pictures of beggars or children with kwashiorkor and flies massing around their runny noses and sore eyes were prized for their authenticity. If there were no beggars in the streets, tourists might start doubting whether Aburiria was an authentic African country.

  The narrative is brilliant, but tedious at times. The story is characteristic of modern African governments.
  

  "There are not moral limits to the means that a ruler can use, from lies to lives, bribes to blows, in order to ensure that his state is stable and his power secure."

  The previous paragraph basically summarizes the entire book of 766 pages. I skipped 150 pages, just did a quick-touch-down-read-a-few-lines-and-go!- exercise over them. It simply was too exhausting. The constant repeats enabled me to catch up again on the part I missed.
  
  Overall the author uses magical realism to portray the two thousand year history of Africa, ending in the modern post-colonial era in which fear and laughter becomes the mainstay of its inhabitants in one sentence.
  
  It is a brilliant introduction to the real Africa, disguised as a fictional tragicomedy. For Africans it is disturbingly familiar and not so funny, sadly. But one endearing characteristic of Africans is our outrageous sense of humor. If you read this book you will understand why.
  
  Introduce yourself to the grotesque and bizarre truths of Africa by reading this book. This is an excellent wordsmith at work. I am glad I bought it.
  
  
  
• 
  Maru Kun

  About half way through the ‘Wizard of the Crow’ the Ruler makes a trip to New York with his Ministers in order to try and persuade officials of the Global Bank to lend Aburiria the money to advance the nation’s “ Marching to Heaven” Project.
  
  The Ruler falls ill on the trip and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Machokali, is forced to call the Wizard of the Crow to fly from to Aburiria New York to affect a cure.
  
  Machokali is worried that if the news ever leaked out that the Ruler was seeking the help of a Witch Doctor to cure his ills this would discredit the Ruler and the country of Aburiria in the eyes of the world. It would show that Aburiria was a primitive and uneducated country, so backward that it’s leaders still believed in magic and sorcery.
  
  Machokali has never before seen the Wizard of the Crow and begins to panic when it occurs to him that the Wizard might arrive at JFK Airport in full Witch Doctor dress – naked except for his loin cloth and a couple of feathers perhaps – and he curses himself for not thinking about this earlier. Fortunately, as the reader but not Machokali is well aware, the Wizard of the Crow is quite the post-modern Witch Doctor and tends to wear conservative suits rather than bangles and fetishes.
  
  This is Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s little joke of course.
  
  As is well known American Republican Presidents are all too familiar with magic and sorcery, often having used them to help inform US government policy.
  
  
  On the left, Joan Quigley in traditional dress, well known sorceress famous for reading the movements of the stars and planets to know the future; adviser to President and Nancy Reagan. On the right, Witch Doctor in traditional dress; government policy adviser status unknown.
  
  President Reagan consulted experts in how the position of the stars and planets would decide the future when making important policy decisions.
  
  President Bush would often speak to an old man with a beard who lives in the sky before deciding whether or not to invade other countries.
  
  Vice President Pence believes that President Trump is God's tool on earth and that
  if all the Jewish people return to Israel this will be the cause of an enormous battle between God and Satan and their angels and devils which will bring about the end of the world and the return of a prophet who has all the powers of the strongest Witch Doctor ever. The GOP and its donors are actively
  directing US policy towards this aim.
  
  Neither the Ruler nor Machokali nor the Wizard of the Crow need have had any embarrassment at using magic, sorcery, prayer or pretty much any supernatural powers at the highest levels of the Aburirian government as the GOP has been doing the same at the highest levels of the American government for decades. Very funny, Mr Thiong'o.
• 
  James

  I have a thing for books that create their own mythologies, and Wizard of the Crow has risen to the top of that list. Set in a fictional African country, this novel takes a serious romp through a stretch of land containing a Postcolonial dictatorship at odds with its people, hysterically played out through a young couple claiming to be The Wizard of the Crow, a sorcerer capable of knowing even The Ruler's deepest secret, the guilt of "white envy," by divination through a mirror. I realize this review sounds like bad jacket copy, and fails to capture even the slightest amount of subtlety, truth, or the vast geopolitical landscape at work here. This is an amazing book, and like so many of the best, is funny and sad simultaneously. There is a wonderful kind of magical realism at work here, a world I was happy to occupy while reading it, one that often seemed more real than the political surrealism we're surrounded with everyday.
• 
  Francesco

  un romanzo satira ma al tempo stesso molto reale, alcune cose sono esasperate al massimo ma ha un fondo di verità, è un romanzo comico, surreale come surreali sono le cose che accadono... avete presente il film " il grande dittatore"? più o meno siamo lì ovviamente con le dovute differenze, ma la sostanza è quella ... prendere per il culo il regime e allo stesso tempo fare in modo che non venga sottovalutato, è un romanzo che andrebbe letto ma qua in itaglia Fabio Volo va per la maggiore per cui amen poi non lamentiamoci se alcune cose non sono più ripubblicate.. non dimentichiamoci che siamo noi a dettare il mercato editoriale e le case editrici per cui la merda sarà sempre pubblicata invece le cose che veramente sono meritevoli piano piano finiranno nel dimenticatoio...che amarezza
• 
  Bjorn

  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.
• 
  Gorkem

  Thiong'o'nun okuduğum bu ikinci kitabı. Kendisi iyi bir yazar mı bilmiyorum. Ama aldığım keyif, benim için öyle olmadığını açıkça belirtiyor. Rahat okunan, kendisince demode olabilecek bir mizaha ve alegoriye sahip bir kitap. Kurgu olarak alıp götüren, toplumsal gerçekleri benzerlik gösteren toplumla ışık tutup din olgusunun politik cazibesini beyaz siyah demeden gözüne sokuyor Kargalar Büyücüsü.
  
  Benim adıma sıkıntı şunlardı:
  
  1. Bazı yazarlar kasıtlı olarak tekrar edilen temalar doğrultusunda kademeli bir merak duygusu yaratır ve en sonunda bu tekrarların bir bütüne ulaşır ve kitabı okur bitirdiğinde nefesi kesilmiş şekilde kitabı kapar ve kitabın etkisini zaman içinde deneyimlemeye devam eder. Kargalar Büyücüsü'nde Thiong'o benzer edebi ostinatolar denese de, bu denemeler benim açımdan samimiyetsiz gelen ve yazarın kendi kariyeri açısından popülist bir amaç doğrultusunda yapılmış hissini verdi.
  
  2. Kitabın girişindeki anlatıcının aniden zart diye kaybolması anlatım açısından da çok iyi irdelenmemiş bir durumdu. İsimsiz anlatıcı konusunda bir farklı yaklaşım mı denemek istemiş yazar bilmiyorum fakat kitapla ilgili bence bağı koparan en koyu nedenlerden biriydi bu durumdu.
  
  Özetle, Kargalar Büyücüsü rahatça okunabilecek bir kitap. Fakat, samimiyetsiz ve buram buram yazarın bu kitabı "bana ödül verin" kaygısıyla yazdığı hissi vermesi. Bu durumu da hissettikten sonra okuma esnasında 400. sflere geldiğinizde kitabı elinizde sürünüp yazardan tiksinerek okumaya devam etmeniz.
  
  3 yıldızı emek ve gene de güldüren Kargalar Büyücüsü'ne veriyorum. Hepsi bu kadar!
  İyi okumalar!
  
• 
  Libby

  Set the fictional dictatorship of Abruria, this 2006 novel chronicles the decline of the corrupt Ruler and the rise of the resistance, which is inextricably linked with a powerful figure known as the Wizard of the Crow.
  
  Sounds very grand, doesn't it? And it certainly is, with a broad and varied cast of characters from all walks of life and a powerful message of hope. The label "magical realism" gets tossed around a lot these days, nearly invariably referring to a nonwhite author's mixing of the oral tradition with western literature. I would describe this book more as "magical satire," and it is as uproariously funny as it is clever, imaginative, moving, and poignant.
  
  The narrative is delivered with a raconteur's skill at drawing the reader in and keeping him or her mystified as to how the preordained events will come about until the moment the veil is snatched away, revealing something new and fascinating.
  
  The story's firm grounding in the precise and occasionally tragic particulars of everyday life in Abruria keep it from floating off into the clouds of fantasy, and the well-rounded characters, especially the strong females, keep it from being a pulpy "one man against the world" political thriller. Yet these attributes succeed in making the story all the more thrilling because it's not just lives at stake; it's an entire nation.
  
  I enjoyed this immensely and would recommend it to anybody, particularly those who like Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
• 
  Paul Dembina

  I don't have to say other than I thoroughly enjoyed this satire about a fictitious (?) African dictator
• 
  Aubrey

  These weapons are to protect our right to political struggle and not a substitute for political struggle.

  I'll have this book be the closing point to 2017 because firstly I'm tired and secondly a massive political satire seems a good way to end one of the most baffling political years in recent US history. Much as I probably should, I can't seem to avoid cutting my teeth on new authors via their biggest books, so when I desired to explore Nobel Prize for Lit potentials, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o came to mind, and this work was all I had. While the plot did get a tad repetitive at times and certain points of lack of nuance in story and prose (including a few grammatical errors) made my interest flag around the 550 page mark, there are so many good ideas and ideals and realities wrapped up in this that it knocks many a fellow literary behemoth out of the park. This also, more than I've seen in ads and other white Neo-Euro constructs, earns the title of 'modern classic', and while it's not the prettiest prose around, it certainly doesn't romanticize the unromanticizable, or make the excuse that taking down the Man means forgoing the intersectional.
  
  The thing about this book is that reading it is easy. Characters come and ago, but there're less people than in the average Ferrante novel with its family table of contents, and there's also a portended meaning for every appearance and disappearance. Absurdities abound, but the reader is usually so deep in the mind of whoever is propagating the absurdities that the hyperdrive instincts of those living under a dictatorship keeps one in suspended disbelief. It is only when one tries to explain this in summary to someone else that the satire reveals itself for what it is: no more than what reality, with all its cults of capitalism and leadership, hands to us on the daily. This is confirmed by what Trump news gives to me in my own country, and this will be the case, "African" or "Western", communist or capitalist, so long as we are all individuals tearing each other down with niceties and lack of critical thinking until the evil are free to grow rich and the good are free to die in the streets. Life does not give us the part-vitality, part-revenge, part-miracle that is the Wizard of the Crow. Individual incidents here and there make for memes and headlines, but it is the protests that follow when these individuals disappear that cross the borders of ethnicity, gender, race, class, academic status, queerness, and so forth. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o gives us no solutions, and frankly, he doesn't owe us any. What he gives us is a good time and a potential revolutionary framework for those with the wherewithal to commit to it.

  Take away ten, make a firm stand on not giving any back, then, under pressure, relent and give back one, and the result is all-around applause, of victory from foe and congratulations from friend. So far [the Ruler] had closely followed the tenets of the theory, with amazing results.

  2017, for me, was the year of anticipation. I won't know the results of this year's efforts for a while more now, and thinking about things beyond control has never done me much good. Whichever path is chosen for me, it will be an uphill struggle for both dignity and the means to put food on the table, and three more years of a self-satisfied cheeto backed by howling bigots and know-nothing liberals will not help at all. A racist pedophile losing a senate race in Alabama shows that the usual demographics know what's up, but it's white people who are the majority still in the US of A, and it's the white people who think they won't be negatively affected. As obtuse as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's satire gets sometimes when it comes to whiteness, I'm sure there are people out there who actually think like that or, worse, think they should think like that. The results, as attested to by a little more than a year ago's fallout, are the same. What is yet to be resolved is whether the Russian investigation will prove a Wizard of the Crow, or simply more of the same.

  [The Wizard of the Crow] should stay in America and acquire the sorcery that invented the fax and the Internet and e-mail and night vision and labs that grow human organs and even clone whole animals and humans, the magic of objects that propel themselves and other worlds, the sorcery by which the dollar rules the world! Amen, some would say, and even this would sometimes generate more arguments among them: Why would you say amen? Amen to what?
• 
  Miglė

  Fantastiška ir gana juokinga istorija apie baisiai korumpuotą Afrikos valstybę, jos despotišką diktatorių ir herojų, kuris, gelbėdamas savo kailį, apsimeta burtininku.
  Personažų daug, jų santykiai nuolatos keičiasi, maži nesusipratimai išauga į valstybės dydžio skandalus, bet istorija vis tiek yra apie gėrį ir teisybę, ir kovą su save naikinančia ir save replikuojančia despoto valdžia.
  
  Ypatingas šios knygos žavesys man buvo tame, kad personažai, susidūrę su faktais, vis pasidaro keisčiausias ir netikėčiausias išvadas, pavyzdžiui: personažas yra benamis ir prašinėja pinigų gatvėje, bet, kadangi vis mėgina gauti darbo, darbo pokalbiams turi išsisaugojęs kostiumą. Eina jis su kostiumu ir jį seka valdžios pasiųstas seklys, kuris mano, kad kostiumuotasis yra pavojingas burtininkas. Anas su kostiumu įeina į tualetą persirengti, apsirengia savo valkatos drabužiais ir išeina, kostiumą susikrovęs į kuprinę. Jo seklys, tai matydamas, įsitikina, kad burtininkas yra shape-shifteris, galintis pasiversti ir benamiu, ir moterimi (dar viena klaidinga išvada iš kito epizodo), ir kuo tik nori.
  
  Arba viena citata apie piktąjį valdovą, kurio kūnas vienu metu ėmė pūstis ir pūstis:
  

  Rumors say that there was a time when he grabbed one of the army leaders who happened to be nearby and asked him, Did you dare to say "the Ruler is pregnant"? And the military man cried out, Oh, no, no, I have not spoken a word. When the Ruler realized his mistake, he claimed that it was a joke: I wanted to test that you are alert at all times. But still he warned the man never to repeat the incident to anyone, even himself. The officer said, What are you talking about? I don't remember a thing, and the reply, apparently sincere, made the Ruler become even more anxious, because if the man could so easily forget what had just transpired, how could the Ruler be sure that the man would not as easily forget that he had just been warned never to repeat the incident to himself or anybody else?
• 
  Bakari

  Well, finally finished the nearly 800 page novel, The Wizard of the Crow, by Nugui wa Thiongo. I read much of Nugui’s novels and other works during my political activists days in college. I wrote a paper about one of his most respected novels, Devil on the Cross. The professor who helped me with the paper wanted me to present it at an African literature conference at Standford Univ. (this was in the mid 1980s), but I was too shy to do it. I wasn’t very good at speaking in front of large gatherings of people.
  
  But Nugugi’s works really raised my political and cultural left consciousness back then, as did the works of Kwame Nkrumah and Franz Fanon. The Devil on the Cross was such a powerful piece of satire and political tale because it captured eloquently, at least from my understanding, the colonial and post-colonial history of Kenya, and many other nations in Africa during the sixties through eighties.
  
  Wizard of the Crow is a larger more expansive tale of the political corruption and dictatorial culture of the Keynian political elite. But it’s really unfair for me to assess this book because I honestly have not been reading novels for last four or five years. I’m not sure why I stopped reading them, but this one is among the few I’ve read. So while most of the novel was interesting to read, I started to lose track of the narrative in the last hundred or so pages.
  
  Wizard of the Crow is also part tale and part satire, and even if you’re not Keynian, you know that it’s a political track against the leaders of Kenya like President Daniel arap Moi who led a corrupt regime in Kenya back in the eighties and nineties.
  
  One of the novel’s main characters is The Ruler and he is no doubt a personification of Moi. Ngugi makes the life and politics of dictatorship visceral in his novel. I almost ached at reading those parts because in so many ways, the cultural of political corruption and lack of real democracy is so very much a part of this country. It would be fascinating for Ngugi to write a similar novel about the U.S.
  
  Well, I‘m not going to say much more about it. I read it all the way through, and though I don’t think it’s better than Devil on the Cross, I’m glad I read it. I probably would not have gotten around to reading it if I were not doing this 52 books in 52 weeks project. I bought book in 2006 when it was first published, but it sat on one of my book shelfs for nearly four years.
  
  I’m looking forward to perhaps reading Ngugi’s soon to be published memoirs.
  
  #end
• 
  Karmologyclinic

  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o undertakes the difficult task of parodying the already absurd entity of the post-colonial Ruler and largely he succeeds. I don't really know how he does it, but he does. His peculiar "magic realism" wins here. I'll take Moore's stance in the
  The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 here and proclaim that magic realism has always been the norm in storytelling, from ancient times. The realism of "proper literature" we are taught is the norm, is not, it is an exception in the history of the novel. In any case, I found Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's storytelling and "magical realism" delightful, unusual and charged by his own culture's tradition.
  
  Somehow though, he self sabotages himself by the book's size, it just grows and grows (like the Marching to Heaven project) and repeats itself and then some more and it becomes tiresome. It was a slow read. Judging from the fact that the book was serialized first and not published as a whole, makes my slow reading justifiable. It was just impossible to read large chunks of it in one sitting, but that's ok with me, I don't need to devour pages to consider a book good. Slow reading has its charm.
  
  One thing I didn't enjoy was its literal didactic tone. I have a knee jerk reaction with this tone, even if I agree 100% with what the author preaches. I believe the preaching was adequately done by the story itself, it never needed a preacher to explain it.
  
  And one more negative observation, the last 10%, the ending, felt tossed hurriedly together and smashed with a potato masher.
  
  You win some, you lose some, if not for the last negative points, I would add a star.
  
  
  
• 
  Marina

  Recensione originale:
  https://sonnenbarke.wordpress.com/202...
  
  
  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o è considerato uno dei maggiori scrittori africani, ma non è molto noto in Italia e mi pare che solo pochi dei suoi numerosi libri siano stati tradotti in italiano. Dopo aver iniziato la sua carriera di autore scrivendo in inglese, Ngũgĩ (wa Thiong'o non è il cognome, ma significa "figlio di Thiong'o") ha deciso di scrivere nella sua lingua madre, il gikuyu. La motivazione di questa scelta è ben spiegata nel suo libro
  Decolonizzare la mente, dove afferma che «la pallottola era il mezzo per l'assoggettamento fisico, il linguaggio era il mezzo per l'assoggettamento spirituale». Quando gli stati africani, fra cui il Kenya, patria di Ngũgĩ, hanno ottenuto l'indipendenza politica, non sono però riusciti a ottenere l'indipendenza culturale, ormai sopraffatti dalla convinzione instillata nella loro mente dai colonialisti per cui la cultura occidentale era necessariamente superiore a quella africana.
  
  Per questa scelta di utilizzare la lingua gikuyu, Ngũgĩ è anche stato arbitrariamente imprigionato dal regime keniota e, dopo essere uscito dal carcere, è andato in esilio prima a Londra e poi negli Stati Uniti.
  
  Questo libro è stato tradotto dall'autore stesso in inglese, e in Italia il libro è stato tradotto dall'inglese: una delle poche volte in cui questa scelta mi trova d'accordo, perché credo sarebbe stato molto difficile se non impossibile trovare un traduttore dal gikuyu all'italiano.
  
  È un romanzo enorme, 910 pagine, tra l'altro massacrato nella versione italiana dalla mancanza di un minimo di correzione bozze, per cui ci sono parole ripetute, errori veri e propri (a un certo punto Vinjinia diventa Virginia) e secondo me, in un caso, anche frasi "mischiate" l'una con l'altra. Comunque, lasciando da parte le questioni editoriali, la mole un po' mi spaventava, dato che sono sempre intimorita dai libri molto lunghi, ma la trama mi sembrava interessante e ho letto alcune recensioni secondo le quali nonostante la mole si leggeva bene. Assolutamente vero. Certo, si sente la lunghezza, ma non appesantisce il piacere della lettura.
  
  Il romanzo è ambientato in un paese africano immaginario, l'Aburĩria, in cui non è difficile riconoscere il Kenya, ma che funge anche da simbolo degli svariati paesi africani che, finito l'assoggettamento al colonialismo, hanno preso una piega dittatoriale con l'approvazione neanche tanto velata dei paesi occidentali. Il Presidente (senza nome) dell'Aburĩria è un dittatore e il paese è monopartitico. Il Presidente è considerato equivalente al paese, per cui quando si dice Aburĩria si pensa al Presidente, e quando si dice Presidente si pensa all'Aburĩria. Il Presidente accoglie anche con piacere i paragoni con Dio fatti dai suoi fedeli servitori lecchini.
  
  Il Presidente si circonda di fidi servitori che, per meglio servirlo, si sottopongono a degli interventi chirurgici per farsi ingrandire, rispettivamente, gli occhi (per meglio vedere i nemici del Presidente), le orecchie (per meglio sentire le maldicenze dei traditori del paese) o la lingua (per meglio inculcare nei cittadini le sagge parole del Presidente).
  
  Come si vede, questo libro è pieno di realismo magico, che la fa da padrone nel corso di tutto il romanzo. Se devo essere sincera, dopo aver visto che l'autore veniva paragonato a Salman Rushdie mi sono spaventata, perché il mio unico approccio a Rushdie è stato disastroso. Ma, mentre avevo trovato Rushdie illeggibile, con Ngũgĩ non ho avuto affatto questa impressione, anzi.
  
  Il romanzo, oltre al Presidente e ai suoi fedeli ministri, ha molti personaggi, fra cui spiccano Kamĩtĩ e Nyawĩra. I due si conoscono quando Kamĩtĩ, tornato dall'India con una laurea che in patria è praticamente carta straccia dato che la disoccupazione è alle stelle, va a cercare lavoro all'Eldares Edilizia Moderna, dove Nyawĩra lavora come segretaria. Kamĩtĩ viene umiliato dal proprietario, Titus Tajirika e, assolutamente sconsolato, decide di andare a chiedere l'elemosina. Qui incontra di nuovo Nyawĩra, che scoprirà essere un membro del Movimento per la Voce del Popolo, strenuo oppositore del regime. Dopo una rocambolesca fuga, Kamĩtĩ inventa uno stratagemma per far scappare gli inseguitori: attacca alla porta della casa in cui si sono rifiugiati un cartello che afferma che lì risiede il Mago dei corvi e invita ad andarsene per non incorrere nella sua ira.
  
  Da qui nasce la nuova attività di Kamĩtĩ che, con l'aiuto di Nyawĩra, per una serie di equivoci finisce per iniziare a operare come guaritore e usa i suoi "poteri magici" per aiutare le persone che vanno da lui a farsi curare dalle più svariate malattie. Nasce così tutta una serie di situazioni per cui anche i poliziotti prima e i potenti poi cercano l'aiuto del Mago dei corvi. Dunque, accanto alla descrizione di una classe politica e imprenditoriale corrotta e alla ricerca di sempre più potere (e soldi), si sviluppa la questione del Mago dei corvi e quella del Movimento per la Voce del Popolo, che si oppone al potere con eclatanti azioni di protesta.
  
  Al centro di tutto c'è un progetto ambiziosissimo, la Marcia verso il Paradiso, ovvero la costruzione di una sorta di Torre di Babele che servirà a magnificare il Presidente. Per questo progetto sarà necessario il finanziamento della Banca Globale.
  
  Insomma, i fili del romanzo sono tantissimi, fra cui molti altri che non ho nominato per non farla troppo lunga; ma se vi sembra che la trama sia confusionaria vi invito a ricredervi, perché l'autore è eccezionale nel dare un senso a tutto questo. Il filo logico, nel corso della lettura, è chiaro ed evidente, e per nulla difficile da seguire. Il romanzo è una feroce satira politica, una condanna delle dittature, del supino piegarsi dei potenti alle forze occidentali, della corruzione, della smania di certi africani di essere come i bianchi, anzi addirittura di diventare loro stessi bianchi. Questo è molto ben spiegato in
  un articolo sul sito
  Scritti d'Africa, in cui si afferma che «Il paradosso a cui si è andati incontro - una tendenza che in tempi di decolonizzazione si è anche accentuata - è che il mondo extraeuropeo si è adattato all’idea di civiltà sottosviluppata che l’europeo gli attribuiva.»
  
  Le forze coloniali hanno dominato i paesi africani politicamente e li hanno fatti sentire inferiori in maniera subdola, portando tra loro i missionari che paternalisticamente li hanno convertiti per far perdere loro quella natura selvaggia che ne caratterizzava la presunta inferiorità. Ma anche dopo l'indipendenza e la creazione dei vari stati africani, la gente ha inevitabilmente continuato a sentirsi inferiore e a smaniare per essere pari ai bianchi. Ngũgĩ sovverte tutto questo restituendo alla sua gente la propria lingua e, conseguentemente, la propria dignità e individualità. In un'intervista citata nell'articolo menzionato qui sopra, Ngũgĩ afferma: «Lo scrivere in gikuyu mi fa sentire libero, anche in esilio, perché la lingua che parliamo è la nostra identità, la nostra storia, il contatto con le nostre radici.»
  
  Come sottolineato da alcuni recensori, la cosa fondamentale nell'approcciarsi a questo romanzo è tenere presente che non aspira a essere un romanzo di gusto "occidentale" ma, proprio grazie al fatto di essere stato scritto in gikuyu, attinge a piene mani a quella che è la cultura africana: una cultura di tipo orale, lontana dalla sensibilità letteraria a cui siamo abituati. È anche per questo che, raccontandone la trama, può sembrare che sia un romanzo confusionario e intricato. Se però ricordiamo che non è e non vuole essere un romanzo "occidentale", questa impressione viene meno. A Ngũgĩ non interessa affatto compiacerci. Come si dice in
  questo articolo del Financial Times, «All'autore non importa niente delle convenzioni della letteratura occidentale; invece si affida allo stile narrativo aperto dei racconti popolari africani [...] Ngũgĩ non sta facendo giochetti letterari; sta raccontando la sua storia a modo suo.» E l'autore dell'articolo continua: «Per godersi questo libro, i lettori devono per prima cosa abbandonare qualunque aspettativa possano avere sulla letteratura, e semplicemente abbandonarsi alla storia.»
  
  Perciò, è un libro che mi sento di consigliare molto, e sicuramente approfondirò la conoscenza di questo autore.
  
  Alcuni link per approfondire:
  
  *
  un articolo del figlio di Ngũgĩ su "cosa significa oggi decolonizzare la mente" (in inglese)
  *
  una recensione di Angelo Ricci al libro Decolonizzare la mente
  *
  un articolo di Nigrizia sulla decolonizzazione della mente
  *
  una recensione del Guardian a Il mago dei corvi (in inglese)
  *
  una recensione di SFGATE a Il mago dei corvi (in inglese)
• 
  Calzean

  This is the African classic novel. Probably as good as any novel gets in depicting Africa's post colonialism culture, politics and problems.
  It depicts a fictitious country with a despotic Ruler.
  His two closest aides jostle for attention and one-upmanship.
  Everyone in power are corrupt.
  Everyone not in power are poor.
  The USA and IMF/World Bank take a hammering in trying to ensuring the now independent African nations remain dependent on US dollars.
  The Churches are hammered as not matter what they say the real power remains with ancient traditions and beliefs.
  Blacks who want to be white are derided.
  The gullible are derided.
  Greed knows no bounds.
  There is a lovely love story.
  Satire and cynicism are used brilliantly to depict man-power being frightened by women with rights and talents challenging the status quo.
  So many things covered that even at 700 plus pages this is a book to saviour.
• 
  Nana Kesewaa

  Apart from the exaggeration and repetition I did not like, I find this book's story telling similar to what I would experience by the fireside. I think the author does amazing work in presenting the story of dictatorship and the role of the ordinary person in all of it. There are many themes at play in the book such as the influence of the west in the affairs of Africa, domestic violence, corruption, magic, herbal medicine, the role of women in the resistance, the list goes on... I particularly like the perspectives of story telling that the author uses. Stories can be told by many story tellers and the views will always differ.
• 
  Kirstine

  As a look into Africa, African culture and African Literature this book is excellent. It’s satirical and deeply serious, and clearly written by someone who understands and is passionate about it.
  The characters are incredibly layered and complex and even the ones you assume are the “bad guys” you end up understanding and sympathizing with. This is very important, because while it’s very clear whose side you ought to be on, real life is never that black and white. This is something the book conveys very well.
  
  But it also appears Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o couldn’t quite decide what style or genre he wanted for the book. It’s an odd mix of realism, magical realism, satire and fantasy. It meant I never quite knew what to believe and what not to believe. Did the magical/supernatural happenings only take place inside those particular character’s heads? Did it reflect the individual character’s level of comprehension or self-awareness? Or was it simply a satirical tool to fully explain and explore the depths of African Culture, or perhaps to convey something completely different? I never quite found out.
  
  The ending didn’t sit right with me either. It seemed as though very little was actually resolved, and that we simply started over again, on the same story, with minimal change in anything. Our two "wizards" undergo big changes, but everyone else seem to move very little, which I found rather unsatisfying for so long and complex a book.
  
  I’d still recommend it, though, to anyone with any interest in Africa and it’s political system and culture. Actually, having some knowledge of those things before reading this might be good. I didn’t, but I believe I might have enjoyed it more if I had. I’m also very curious to find out more about the authors intentions in writing the book, because I’m quite lost as to what he might have wanted to say with it.
  
  This review is messy and I apologize if it made no sense, but it goes to show how confused I’ve been by this book. However, if it catches your eye I can only urge you to give it a try.
  
• 
  Fazilet Özdiker

  Daha evvel yazardan Aradaki Nehir'i okumuş ve çok sevmiştim. Bir kitapçıda rastladım Kargalar Büyücüsü'ne. İçim içime sığmadı gördüğüm ilk an. Seda Ağar'ın muhteşem çevirisi ile hızla okudum kitabı.
  
  Hayali bir Afrika ülkesi olan Aburirya'ya konuk oluyoruz. Bir diktatörlük var Aburirya'da. Diktatör ise Hükümdar diyor kendine. Yanında onu destekleyenler, halk çile çekse de ona boyun eğmek zorunda. Emperyalist güçlerin adamı Hükümdar. Onu kimse deviremez, kimse buna cüret bile edemez ona göre. Ama Soğuk Savaş bitince Batı'daki itibarı kaybolur Hükümdar'ın. Sözde demokrasi devri devam etse de bu yeni dönüşüme ayak uyduramamış ve ününü kaybetmiştir Hükümdar. Halk ayaklanmış, muhalif hareketler baş göstermeye yüz tutmuş, gizemli sesler yükselmeye başlamıştır. Kadınlar bir halk hareketi başlatarak protestolarla korkutur Hükümdar'ı. Kocalar dayak yer, periler cinler ve dilden dile yayılan hurafeler duyulmaya başlar.
  
  Tam da bu keşmekeşin ortasında bir büyücü çıkar sahneye! Kargalar Büyücüsü adı dilden dile dolaşır. Hastalar şifa bulur, kötü ruhlar ondan kaçar, herkesin bir isteği vardır Kargalar Büyücüsü'nden. Bu bilinmezin ortasında, bir anda beliren Kargalar Büyücüsü kimdir peki? Kadın mıdır erkek midir? Düş müdür gerçek midir? Düzenbaz mıdır yoksa halkı kurtarmaya gelen bir kahraman mıdır?
  
  Bir ülkede yaşanabilecek onlarca binlerce şeyi bir kitapta toplamış yazar. Halk hareketlerinden işçi kuyruklarına, diktatörlükle yönetimden dalkavukluğa, büyüden gerçeğe kadar her şey var Kargalar Büyücüsü'nde. Uzun, kalın demeden başlanmalı. Ve bu zekice kurgu ile tanışılmalı. Ertelemeyin, hayran kalacaksınız.
• 
  Yuko Shimizu

  If anyone is intimidated by 750+ page length, you certainly shouldn't. It was definitely the main reason why I had to put this off for so long (like, years!), as I am an ESL after all and read much much slower in English compared to my first language of Japanese. However, as soon as I started reading I got sucked in, and didn't even think about what page I am on.
  The novel is written in simple language that is easy to understand and entertaining to read, but also deep and rich with history and politic lessons, colorful characters, important moral and philosophical teachings that definitely make you stop and deeply think about race, gender, freedom, and just how we should live to be a good human.
  The book is full of magic (both in actuality and metaphorically) along the lines of popular books and styles by Garcia Marquez, Junot Diaz or Haruki Murakami. I don't know why not as many people are reading this or talking about it. Hope you would pick this up too. Mini book club anyone?
• 
  Leslie

  This book is ambitious and over-the-top!
  
  Can science, psychiatry, and moral political activism resolve brutal abuses of political power or must spiritual values and practices of global religions (ancient and contemporary) be employed as well?
  
  So many storytellers in this tale---many are corrupt and greedy liars merely trying to save their own asses but the tales they come up with! Their utterances and praises! Convincingness to the Nth degree! Call-and-response, repetition, cues from the audience, and other collaborative storytelling methods are all employed.
  
  Up until about page 585 or so I would have given the book a 4-5 star rating. For me, the tone and overall flavor of the narrative shifted quite a bit after that. Sometimes big books are difficult for their authors to wrap-up!
  
  I do look forward to reading some of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's shorter works.
• 
  Sana Abdulla

  I know a young woman who suffered an atrocious upbringing by a heartless parent, every time she narrates a story from her family life she does it with a huge smile, laughing frequently at the absurdly cruel life she led.
  That is exactly how this book reads, like a farce describing decades of poverty, oppression, torture and arbitrary imprisonment and murder.
  In Aburiria, an African country suffering under the dictatorship of a power crazed president, a hapless job seeker find himself the subject of a nationwide pursuit as the potent wizard of the crow, his adventures take him to the United States and the presidential Palace, among the lesser haunts like bars, caves and jungles.
  Its hard to write about all the characters of this big book, all quite colourful, innovative and off kilter. Nothing in this book is normal really except for the way people feel, the writer uses a lot of paranormal occurrences while stressing that the wizard is just a man, and has no powers whatsoever.
  The end is a bit of a downer to me and felt too rapid after all that reading.
• 
  Lizzy

  Wow, an astonishing book. So much is encompassed within the poetic prose; Wa Thiong'o speaks eloquently about the effects of colonialism in African countries, about the violence against women across the globe, and about the poison that seeps into governments that are entangled in capitalist campaigns. Wa Thiong'o is able to tell a history that makes you question the importance of facts, dates, and names. His characters stand for many men and women, his country stands for many countries, and the injustices in his books stand for countless injustices committed across the globe. Definitely a favorite, if I didn't have to take it back to the library I would read it again.