The Wellek library lectures in critical theory

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Globalectics brings together Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s most urgent ideas about how literature can challenge domination and remake the way people think. In a wide-ranging, high-level exploration of postcolonial creativity, he examines the politics of language—how linguistic imperialism shapes African writing, how orature and writing can coexist, and how curricula and “world literature” frameworks can either reinforce or resist the Western canon. Tracing the tensions between national and global literary ambitions, he argues for a decolonizing practice of imagination grounded in lived experience and the textures of everyday speech. Blending theory with evocative prose, this volume engages major thinkers on power and culture while ultimately insisting that the struggle over words is inseparable from the struggle for freedom.