Wizard of the Crow

Wizard of the Crow is a magical book. Not only magic in the sense of magic realism but also in the sense of the sheer wonder of the story itself. Much has been written about the book's satire almost as if it were only a satire. In many ways it is a profoundly serious book and it is because of the magic of narration(s) in this book that one might lose sight of its profound message. This is a tale of improbable magicians, folk medicine, justice, neocolonial domination and pompous westernism, feminism and these are only part of an extraordinary tale(s). It is also a story of love...a love story enveloped in magic, narrow-escapes, transformations. It will make you laugh and the beauty of the prose will make you shiver. Instead of giving a Cliff Notes recap of the book I would only say this: I was a sceptic and now I believe in magic. This is a truly beautiful and wonderful book and it is full of magic. Not Harry Potter magic but rather a true, simple magic. Enjoy ever word! It is as if a magician himself wrote this incredible book and what better compliment could you pay to the author, certainly this particular author.

A wonderful modern day adventure that explains the woes of African countries with honest humor.

This is a fascinating book you can really sink your teeth into. The satire is biting, the laughs come often but then the reality of our country's present policies sets in. We would be lucky to have a Wizard of the Crow right now in America. I highly recommend this book, it is a wonderful read.

Usually I read pretty fast, especially with a novel I enjoy, but sometimes a book compels you to put it down from time to time as you read to think about the story and the realities which the author is exploring. This was that kind of book, a tale to savour and think about. The style is african storytelling, full of fabulous events and characters and laugh out loud language and happenings including an explosive fart to end all farts, but it is also carefully plotted as a complicated political narrative. Ngugi Wa Thiongo is writing a satirical history of Kenya and similar African nations subjected for too long to corrupt "strong men" leaders, but on a larger scale he captures the Zeitgeist of our own time and the surrealistic language and machinations of those corrupted by power and violence. The Ruler of the imaginary country of Aburiria in the story is afflicted with a malaise which a bombastic Harvard doctor calls SIE, Self induced Expansion, he is physically expanding in sync with his seemingly bottomless megalomania. The hero is a character called the Wizard of the Crow who stumbles into awareness of his own powerful gifts when he needs to save his skin in a tight spot; he takes up the role of a modern day wizard and uses common sense spirituality and an ability to see hidden truths via mirrors to heal the sick. But while he seeks only to heal even the most vicious of men, his ministry has the side effect of disrupting the complacency of the greedy Ruler and his ministers, and bringing all the muddled forces of the state against him and his friends. The Wizard, his politically motivated lover and the women of Aburiria respond with imagiative pranks and the relentless demand to be heard. While some aspects of the story are handled with a comical magic realism, this fabulism is rooted in and constrained by a profound inner realism, and it allows for insight into the choices of characters and the resulting effects on society . The plot never relies on magic but shows the role of imagination in a community. His atunement to the distortions of political language and the excesses of global capitalism cut to the quick of current American and neo-colonial politics and are nothing less than brilliant. At times Thiongo may give the reader more of the mechanics of the plot than are needed but I think the writer's purpose was to make the choices of the characters more credible and to show the cumulative effect of those choices. All in all I found the Wizard of the Crow a really rich and engaging story from a writer with a unique perspective because of his confrontations with Kenyan despotism. Anyone who can be funny and hopeful after what he has been through is a remarkable person. ( I thought John Updike's review was off the mark, but don't care for Updike's recent work anyway)

I was first introduced to Ngugi's novels in my African literature class when I was an undergrad. My mentor, Peter Nazareth, who also teaches an incredible course on Elvis Presley, went to college with Ngugi in Uganda and postgraduate school in Leeds, England. The only writer from Africa I'd read up until that course was Achebe, but there are so many truly amazing novels by Africans out there that most Americans simply don't know about--a whole literature that goes far beyond Things Fall Apart: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Armah, Maru by Bessie Head, A Season of Migration to the North by Salih, The Famished Road by Okri, The Palm-Wine Drunkard by Tutuola, The Book of Secrets by Vassanji, Nehanda by Vera, A Walk in the Night by La Guma, The General Is Up by my mentor Peter Nazareth, and on and on. The best storyteller among them all, however, I must say, in my own opinion, is Ngugi wa Thiong'o. From his first works on up, they've just been better and better. A Grain of Wheat was the first I read, all about England giving up colonial power over Kenya, the Mau Mau movement, and Gikuyu culture. Another of his novels I love and have read several times is Devil on the Cross. He was detained by the Kenyan government in the late seventies after his novel Petals of Blood sparked the popular imagination and made him a threat to the regime. While in detention, he wrote Devil on the Cross, I'm told partly on toilet paper as it was all there was to write upon. Soaring with magic realism, it gives a mythic, moral critique of the Kenya he was experiencing. It's one of the great books I've read. And until this summer, it was my favorite of his works. His latest book is Wizard of the Crow and I literally don't have the skills to convey how great it is. It's been awhile since he published a novel. His last novel before this was Matigari, which he wrote in 1983-84, first in Gikuyu and then translated it himself into English (as he'd done with Devil on the Cross). Over twenty years, then, since he finished his last novel. As it's published, it's 766 pages long, his longest work. And, I have to say, it is his best. It is the kind of story that cannot be written quickly, its scope encompassing much more than most novels do. This was a book that demanded incubation. Wizard of the Crow isn't so much an African novel as it is a novel that explores Africa in a global context. It focuses on a fictitious country called Aburiria, which is controlled by a dictator called The Ruler. He's completely bonkers, and it isn't hard for me to see Idi Amin in this leader--the Ngatho - Acknowledgments at the end also point back to the Moi dictatorship of Kenya. But he, and his cabinet (with men who've undergone impossible plastic surgeries in Europe to have lightbulb-sized eyes and forearm-length ears--so as to be the eyes and ears of the country), aren't the only villains in this book. There's also the greedy businessmen and the Global Bank, who come to consider giving The