The Martyr | Literary Criticism & Book Review

The Martyr Critical Overview

Ngugi has achieved international recognition as East Africa's leading novelist. His stories address the struggles of Africans in Kenya during the colonial and post-colonial eras. Critics have focused primarily on the political impetus in Ngugi's novels, stories, plays, and essays. G. D. Killam asserts, "Ngugi felt from the outset of his career as a writer that writing should serve social and political purposes." Ngugi himself, in an introduction to the story collection Secret Lives, states that his writing is "an attempt to understand myself and my situation in society and history." Charles Cantalupe, calling Ngugi "East Africa's greatest novelist and essayist," notes that Ngugi is "the most widely discussed and foremost African writer today in understanding the problems of postcolonial Africa." Cantalupe has also pointed out the international impact of Ngugi's work, despite the fact that it has been banned in his own country: "Since his exile from Kenya in...
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