Wizard of the Crow

Last Sunday things changed for me. I am still in Johannesburg! But last Sunday I started to live my life as if I lived here...The big difference with what I was doing before is that now I do not concider that since I am to work all I do is work and I only eat because I have too, I only sleep so I can work. Now I work because I have to. It makes fairly little difference in my daily schedule apart from a little less work (less than the original 12 hours a day) but it makes a GREAT difference in the way I feel.Last sunday I went to Bushmen Rock Art Museum (it is called the Origin Centre) and instead of being organised and going in the morning etc as any good tourist would do, I ended up going in mid afternoon, whenever the thought came to me.Today I started with a late breakfast in a comfortable place with the newspaper. Those of you who know me when I am home will know that I love the weekend edition of the newspaper. I was sitting in a nice restaurant eating at the only coffe table spot sitting on a sofa (it is really meant to be the place where you wait for you table while it gets ready but the owner let me take it over) reading the newspaper...it felt like home.
Anyway here is one thing..only one don't worry...I read about.
Ngugi wa Thiong (no idea how you pronounce it!) has a new book out "Wizard of the Crow". Ngugi wa Thiong is a Kenyan author who now lives and teach in California. He writes in Gikuyu his native tongue but also translated the book into English himself.I've seen the book here in the book stores, and I wonder if it is available in Canada, here books are VERY expensive. The newspaper just says that the book "Speaks about the ravishing effect of globalisation, of corporolonisation and the corruption that keeps the beggars at the skirts of the rich. In a desert of exploitation, here is a voice speaking for the growing prison class, the homeless, the voiceless"...may I add: and those who will not be able to buy the book.Ok so it does not sound like a light read but here is a stupid point about it: I like the title!...Crazy I know but in a sea of African writing that I am trying to sample while I am here this is just as good a criteria as any.On a totally different subject, one interesting point that Ngugi (I am just going to type his first name from now on) makes about "Out of Africa" the ever so famous book by Karen Blixen is "it is one of the most dangerous books written about Africa because she misuses her brilliant gift (writing) and misrepresents her racist ideas as love, perniciously equating her Kenyan manservant's gestures with those of a pet dof"...I haven't read the book and now I feel re-inforced in my resistance to read it. I don't know if in it she does compare this man to a pet dog, but if she does it bet you she does it in the same way men "look after the poor poor weak females around them" and this gets me always so angry...so I bet you I can relate to what Ngugi is saying: people meaning to be nice but really keeping other people down with their daily subtle but never ending behaviour. I think we should assume that I can rant and rave about this one for just about ever and I should just skip the ranting and raving.
One funny anecdot (spelling?) that came out of the article for me is the one about Daniel Arap Moi, the Kenyan president, sending out a warrant for the capture of the revolutionary Matigari in 1986, in Nairobi, when in fact this Matigari is the main character of Ngugi's book "Matigari" written in 1967.
Other authors and other books were mentioned in hte article and I think I will cut the article out and stuff it in my address book (the onlyplace where things like this do not get lost).