This is the Voice of Truth. The Minister for Truth and Justice has said that this is a worker’s government…Government bans the Opposition Party…His Excellency Ole Excellency has said that this this a people’ s government…The people do not want opposition parties, as they only cause disorder in the country

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Matigari. Great Britain: Heinemann, 1987, 7

The ruling party is our party. it is your party. It is the national party. Therefore this company has given shares to the country, the whole nation. From now onwards, all of you here and even those who are not here have a stake in the company. Now this company is yours. It is ours. It is a national company. This is capitalism with a social face – or socialism with a capitalist heart.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Matigari. Great Britain: Heinemann, 1987, 108

The novel was published in the Gikuyu-language original in Kenya in October 1986. By January 1987, intelligence reports had it that peasants in Central Kenya were whispering and talking about a man called Matigari who was roaming the whole country making demands about truth and justice. There were orders for his immediate arrest, but the police discovered that Matigari was only a fictional character in a book of the same name. In February 1987, the police raided all the bookshops and seized every copy of the novel.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Matigari. Great Britain: Heinemann, 1987,vii

its quite an easy read. i read matigari within a day for today’s lecture – writing after empire. (yes our required readings come by the bookloads). the author satirizes government propaganda and uses his characters allegorically. matigari is in fact the name of those who resisted being assimilated into the neocolonialist regime after the successful mau mau uprising against the british colonial masters as recent as 1960.