Ngugi Wa Thiong'o was born in Limuru, Kenya in 1938. He was educated at the Alliance High school, at Makerere
University, Uganda, and at the University of Leeds in England. "Matigari" was published in Gikuyu in
Kenya in 1986, and this - the first American edition - repeats the first and only English translation (Heinemann
International/Africa Writers Series 1989). Ngugi, an active campaigner for the African language and form, travels
and lectures extensively on this theme. His work is known throughout the world and has made a powerful impact at
home and overseas. He is currently a professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies at New York University.
Goro, Wangui wa (Translator) :
Wangui wa Goro, the translator, is a social critic, interpreter and writer with strong interest in the development
of African languages.
Sample Chapter
EXCERPT 1:
A Note on the American edition
I wrote Matigari in 1983-84 in a one-room apartment at Noel Road in Islington London. It was my second novel in
Gikuyu language. It came out in Kenya in 1986. Since then the book itself has had a history almost rivaling that
of a fictional story it carries within the hard covers.
The novel was written within my first three years of political exile from the Kenya I love. My writing the novel
in Gikuyu when there are hardly any significant speakers and readers of the language in Britain or abroad was my
way of coping with the harsh conditions of exile and to make a connection with Kenya. When the novel came out in
Kenya in 1986, it was indeed received in the country very positively. People started talking about the main character,
Matigari, as a real living person. He was after all asking questions, albeit in a fictional landscape, which many
people in the country were asking. In a dictatorship, questions of truth and justice are paramount precisely because
these two are the first to disappear in such an environment. In the Kenya of 1986 and after, many intellectuals
have been imprisoned, exiled or killed for going about their literary and academic tasks of asking questions. So
it is not surprising that the regime's internal spy network should have quickly heard of the exploits of this man
Matigari who it seems was going about the country agitating the populace with endless questions about truth and
justice. The dictator responded in character. He had the police issue a warrant for the arrest of Matigari. But
the hardworking policemen found out that the man they had come to arrest was only a fictional character in a book
by the same title. The dictatorship reacted to this information by calling for the arrest of the book itself. And
indeed, in a very well coordinated police action, they raided all the bookstores in the entire country sometimes
in 1987 and took away all the copies of the novel, presumably to burn it or let it rot to death in a police garrison.
An English translation of the novel was then published in London in 1991. Here then was another irony. For a time
the novel existed only in English and in exile abroad, thus sharing the fate of its author. Two years later copies
of the book could be sold in the bookshops in Kenya; thus in its English language form, the novel and character
could be read in Kenya, but not in its Gikuyu original. And it is only in 1997, under the new atmosphere of the
struggle for multiparty democracy, that it was re-issued in its Gikuyu language original so that today the two
versions can rub shoulders in the country. But still the novel and its characters are still more 'free' in exile
in the double sense of both language and country than they are at home in their native country and language.
Matigari is one of my most personal narratives in the sense that in writing it I was trying to experiment with
oral narrative forms. I hope readers of the American edition will enjoy the story. They do not have to look beyond
their shoulders in the fear that a state authority will haul them in prison for reading a story about a man whose
main interest is in the quest for truth and justice.
Ngugu wa Thiong'o Orange, New Jersey December 1997
EXCERPT (2): Part two Macaria ma na kihooto Seeker of Truth and Justice...
When the children woke up the next day, they found Muriuku sleeping in his Mercedes-Benz. They woke him up and
crowded him. "When did you come back?" "At night." "Tell us. Tell us about the man...
Tell us about Matigari ma Njiruungi." The story of how Matigari had saved Guthera from the police dog had
already reached them. They had heard how the police had shaken with fear in front of Matigari. The children felt
guilty. It was the same police who for many years had harassed them. Why did we attack such a good man? They asked
themselves. Where can we find Muriuki so that he can tell us about the man? That is why they were now pleased to
see Muriuki.
Muriuki added salt to the story. Their thoughts grew wings: Is it true that he was arrested? Is it true that the
prison doors opened mysteriously? Do you think they will announce it on radio?
One of the boys ran to fetch the radio he had found in the garbage yard. The children had agreed that the radio
would be communal property, so they could all listen to the news of the country and the world. They had paid compensation
to the boy who had found it. They took the radio everywhere they went.
Now they gathered round to hear anything, any news, about Matigari ma Njiruungi.
This is the voice of truth... His Excellency Ole Excellence yesterday received a donation of fifty thousand shillings
from businessmen (browns blacks and whites) who paid him a visit at his home. The donation is for the presidential
fund for disabled children. The leader of the delegation congratulated His Excellency Ole Excellence for stamping
out a mutiny which was intended to disrupt peace and stability in the country...
Two university lectures appeared in court yesterday charged with possessing books on Karl Marx and V. Lenin published
in China. All books about the liberation of peasants and workers, particularly those published in China, have been
banned since independence...
Five university students were arrested yesterday for taking part in a demonstration outside the British and United
States Embassies. The students were protesting against Western aid to the apartheid regime. All demonstrations
were banned in the country by a presidential decree...
Reports from Johannesburg, South Africa, say that the ANC freedom fighters are responsible for the explosion of
a time bomb in a hotel frequented by whites. The whites are said to fear the unity of the SWAPO and ANC guerrillas...
Review
"Ngugi wa Thiong'o has succeeded in creating a fascinating and revolutionary concept of genre... Matigari
is both a novel at the same time as it is an oral narrative performance. [Matigari] is likewise equally a hagiography
as it is a myth."
--Lewis Nkosi
"Soon after Matigari's publication, its hero was mistaken by the paranoid, dictatorial government of Kenya
as a revolutionary agitator plotting to overthrow the government, which promptly issued a warrant for his arrest!
When the ensuing extensive search across the country finally revealed that Matigari was only a fictional hero,
the book which had given birth to this phantom, this Matigari ... was immediately confiscated and banned from circulation."
--F. Odun Balogun
Africa World Press Inc. Web Site, August, 2002
Summary
Who is Matigari? Is he young or old? Dead or living... or even Jesus Christ? These are the questions asked by
the people when a man who has survived a war for independence emerges from the mountains. Matigari is in search
of his family, the rebuilding of his home and the start of a new and peaceful future. But his search becomes a
quest for truth and justice as he finds the people still dispossessed and the land he loves ruled by corruption,
fear, and misery. Rumor springs up that a man with superhuman powers has risen to renew the freedom struggle. The
novel races towards its climax as Matigari realizes that words alone cannot defeat the enemy. He vows to use force
of arms to achieve his true liberation. Lyrical and hilarious in turn, Matigari is a memorable satire on the betrayal
of human ideals and on the bitter experience of post-independence African society.
Table of Contents
A Note on the American Edition... To the Reader/Listener
Part One Ngaruro wa Kiriro Wiping your Tears Away...
Part two Macaria ma na kihooto Seeker of Truth and Justice...
Part Three Guthera na Muriuki The Pure and the Resurrected...
