'The originality of this volume is that the articles do not start from the texts of Ngugi's novels and plays but rather from the experience that made the writer, including the direct witnessing of national history, but also the local and familial context, and the intellectual influences. Centred on the man and the world that made him (a centre that moved as he did), the articles here bring a new perspective to the literary works. Critics of African literature too often assume we already know all that matters about the large-scale context of colonialism, postcolonialism and neocolonialism. But this volume, by examining how history touched the writer personally, at different ages and life stages, makes us understand all we thought we knew afresh, bringing valuable nuance, revelatory detail, and deeper understanding to the work of one of Africa's greatest writers, one whose creative response to the world, in turn, has inspired readers in many places to understand the world differently and to want to change it.' Neil ten Kortenaar, author of Debt, Law, Realism: Nigerian Authors Imagine the State at Independence
