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Magical Realism for revolutionary didactic purposes in Ngugi’s Matigari
Bouhadiba, Malika1.
This paper attempts to explore the magical realist dimension of Ngugi’s novel Matigari . The
major contention held in this paper is that Ngugi has used Magical Realism for a twofold
purpose: to drive home his revolutionary message to the grassroots, and to serve his cultural
revival mission. Magical realism has often been used to call for revolutionary praxis by Latin
American writers. Again, since this literary mode relies on the use of myths, folklore, fantasy,
and other traditional lore, it appealed to Ngugi who attempts to work for the retrieval of Gikuyu
oral culture. In Matigari, Ngugi draws from both African and biblical mythology. From the
former he borrowed the fable on which the story of the novel is patterned, and from the latter he
has borrowed the savior motif, a motif that serves the revolutionary didacticism of the novel. In
the main, in this novel, Ngugi fuses two literary genres: African oral and Western written. He,
however, contends that his novel belongs to African oral Literature.
Affiliation:
- Oran University, Algeria
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