Kenyan dramatist and novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o is a hugely influential African writer respected not only for his creative work but also for his criticism of wider cultural issues - issues such as nation and narration, power and performance, language and identity, empire and postcoloniality. Simon Gikandi's study, first published in 2000, offers a comprehensive analysis of all Ngugi's published work and explores the development of the major novels and plays against a background of colonialism and decolonisation in Kenya. Gikandi places the works in a context that examines the way they engage with the changing history of Africa. Tracing Ngugi's career from the 1960s through to his role in shaping a radical culture in East Africa in the 1970s and his imprisonment and exile in the 1980s, this book provides fresh insight into the author's life and the historic events that produced his work.

"Gikandi has done historians a favor with this wide-ranging book." International Journal of African History

"Solid, mainstream postcolonial criticism, Gikandias book should be [in] all libraries supporting serious study of postcolonialism and/or African literature and history." Choice

"Gikandi is one of the most erudite and insightful critics we have ... and, with his latest offering, he may very well have produced the best extant monograph on Ngugi wa Thiong'o." Research in African Literature

"Gikandi has written a scholarly bokk on an important African writer that all serious scholars of Ngugi and of African literature will find indispensable...this book is the best so far on Ngugi wa Thiong'o...Gikandi's book is a first-rate work on Ngugi and his place in the African literary canon." World Literature Today Nov 2001