Publication Date
June 2010
Abstract
Jonathan Ree describes an ideal nation where each national subject can proclaim, "the nation is mine" (1998, p. 89). Ngũgũ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow, depicts a state where the state and its ruler are co-extensive, the subjects exiles. In this paper, I argue that as an external exile, Ngũgũ has become a global citizen. That global citizenship still exhibits a rooted cosmopolitanism. Ngũgũ reclaims his nation vicariously through empowered women who resist the corruption of the nation by the excesses of patriarchal power and global capital. Internally exiled in their own country, the women lead the struggle to recover the nation from these forces. The paper closes with some reflections on the vested interests of the nation-state even in a utopic global order.
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