Wizard of the Crow (2006)

A dictator's grand ambitions recruit ministers, rumour, lenders and ordinary people into a widening theatre of obedience. Ngũgĩ's fictional Aburiria allows comic exaggeration to expose the transactions that a solemn account of government might conceal. The magician's counter-performance matters as much as the ruler's spectacle. This is a substantial, expansive novel, translated from Gĩkũyũ into English by its author; give its digressions room rather than expecting a brisk political fable.