Abstract

gugi's narrative magnum opus, Wizard of the Crow (2006), is pedagogically difficult to manage in an undergraduate African literature survey or Third World novel survey course, or a class that focuses on the postco- lonial narrative. Tipping the scales at 2.35 pounds (1068 grams), and running to 766 pages, the best way to introduce Ngugi's heavy-weight picaresque Rabelaisian novel to undergraduates is through judicious reductions and editorial emenda- tions. To digest Crow requires tolerance for high-calorie narrative. Especially this is true for undergraduate readers who are not familiar with Ngugi's menu of political corruption and turmoil agitated by African tyrants who are comically grotesque. To make the Wizard work its narrative magic, an anthology approach is needed to serve up selections from the novel that are palpably Ngugi (his themes and style) and palatable for narrative novices. While Wizard of the Crow is about corrup- tion and tyranny in Kenya, the novel's lessons and satire apply to many African countries. Because the majority of the students in my classes confess they have watched movies such as Blood Diamond and Hotel Rwanda, they have had a visual and visceral introduction to human tragedy in various African countries about which they know little. Thus it is important that the instructor make judicious editorial cuts in order to make Ngugi's novel interesting and instructive. My pedagogical intent was to invigorate Ngugi's Wizard by excerpting it without completely eviscerating the themes of political corruption and dictatorial high handedness. I aimed at an excision that would not remove Ngugi's narrative intent to satirize the African politics and the tyrants who propel the tragic com- edies of ineptitude that play out in many countries on the African continent. This sort of careful reduction of the novel is necessary even though American under- graduate readers really need full exposure to the historical and cultural complexi- ties that Ngugi portrays in Wizard. The average undergraduate junior or senior I encounter in a world literature survey class will have little knowledge of African political cultures other than what they might learn from extremely violent films about Africa, or from following various Hollywood and other popular culture celebrities who have adopted African children, established African schools, con- tributed to AIDS relief, and reveled in their global goodness on various talk shows. Most of my students are middle-class American Midwesterners who have regional

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