Description: This is the first comprehensive book-length study of gender politics in Ngugi wa Thiong's fiction. Brendon Nicholls argues that the mechanisms of gender subordination are strategically crucial to Ngugi's ideological project, but that his fiction also creates transgressive spaces for women. Nicholls proposes a strategy of 'performative reading' that offers an ethical basis for analyzing cultural difference and critiquing cultural practices, while avoiding both cultural imperialism and cultural relativism.
Review Quotes: 'Brendon Nicholls revisits old issues such as gender and nationalism in African literature with freshness and deploys historical context in his reading of Ngugi's texts with amazing discrimination. His book compels us to look at the politics of translation in African literature with new insights and to see translation as a source of creative energy and agency, rather than the space within which "original" meaning or the autochthon is violated'. James Ogude, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and author of Ngugi's Novels and African History '... the book provides readers with a clear grasp of the subject matter... Recommended.' Choice 'A well-researched and highly theoretical monograph...' Review of English Studies '... very informed and illuminating analysis.' Wasafiri