Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (used)

Ngugi writes in his introduction –'The present collection of essays is an integral part of the fictional world of The River Between, Weep Not, Child and A Grain of Wheat. Most of them were written at about the same time as the novels; they have been products of the same moods and touch on similar questions and problems. There are differences. In a novel the writer is totally immersed in a world of imagination which is other than his conscious self. At his most intense and creative the writer is transfigured, he is possessed, becomes a medium. In the essay the writer can be more direct, didactic, polemical, or he can merely state his beliefs and faith; his conscious self is here more at work. Nevertheless, the boundaries of his imagination are limited by the writer's beliefs, interests, and experiences in life, by where in fact he stands in the world of social relations.... This must be one of the reasons that readers are curious about a writer's opinion on almost everything under the sun — from politics and religion to the conservation of wild life! The writer is thus forced, either by the public or by the needs of his craft, to define his beliefs, attitudes and outlook in the more argumentative form of the essay.'

Condition: good