Brendon Nicholls

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 in terms of its Gikuyu allusions and references, a gendered narrative of history emerges that creates transgressive spaces for women. Nicholls bases his discussion on moments during the Mau Mau rebellion when women's contributions to the anticolonial struggle could not be reduced to a patriarchal narrative of Kenyan history, and this interpretive maneuver permits a reading of Ngugi's fiction that accommodates female political and sexual agency. Nicholls contributes to postcolonial theory by proposing a methodology for reading cultural difference. This methodology critiques cultural practices like clitoridectomy in an ethical manner that seeks to avoid both cultural imperialism and cultural relativisim. His strategy of 'performative reading,' that is, making the conditions of one text (such as folklore, history, or translation) active in another (for example, fiction, literary narrative, or nationalism), makes possible an ethical reading of gender and of the conditions of reading in translation.

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 in terms of its Gikuyu allusions and references, a gendered narrative of history emerges that creates transgressive spaces for women. Nicholls bases his discussion on moments during the Mau Mau rebellion when women's contributions to the anticolonial struggle could not be reduced to a patriarchal narrative of Kenyan history, and this interpretive maneuver permits a reading of Ngugi's fiction that accommodates female political and sexual agency. Nicholls contributes to postcolonial theory by proposing a methodology for reading cultural difference. This methodology critiques cultural practices like clitoridectomy in an ethical manner that seeks to avoid both cultural imperialism and cultural relativisim. His strategy of 'performative reading,' that is, making the conditions of one text (such as folklore, history, or translation) active in another (for example, fiction, literary narrative, or nationalism), makes possible an ethical reading of gender and of the conditions of reading in translation.

Nadine Gordimer is one of the most important writers to emerge in the twentieth century. Her anti-Apartheid novel July''s People (1981) is a powerful example of resistance writing and continues even now to unsettle easy assumptions about issues of power, race, gender and identity.

This guide to Gordimer''s compelling novel offers:

• an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of July''s People
• a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
• a selection of new and reprinted critical essays on July''s People, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key approaches identified in the critical survey
• cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
• suggestions for further reading.

Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of July''s People and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Gordimer''s text.

Nadine Gordimer is one of the most important writers to emerge in the twentieth century. Her anti-Apartheid novel July''s People (1981) is a powerful example of resistance writing and continues even now to unsettle easy assumptions about issues of power, race, gender and identity.

This guide to Gordimer''s compelling novel offers:

• an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of July''s People
• a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
• a selection of new and reprinted critical essays on July''s People, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key approaches identified in the critical survey
• cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
• suggestions for further reading.

Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of July''s People and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Gordimer''s text.