Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Gender, and the Ethics of Postcolonial Reading

Name: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Gender, and the Ethics of Postcolonial Reading
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

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. > This is the first comprehensive book-length study of gender politics in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's fiction. Brendon Nicholls argues that mechanisms of gender subordination are strategically crucial to Ngugi's ideological project from his first novel to his most recent one. Nicholls describes the historical pressures that lead Ngugi to represent women as he does, and shows that the novels themselves are symptomatic of the cultural conditions that they address. Reading Ngugi's fiction i.