‘Historical Falsehood and the Therapy of Truth: A Reader-Response Interrogation of Mukoma wa Ngugi’s Mrs. Shaw

Abstract

This paper examines the portrayal of two contrasting historical accounts about the African past in Mukoma wa Ngugi’s Mrs/Shaw (2015).  The text is analysed from the point of view of Reader-Response and, eclectically, with insights from theories of Deconstruction and Postcolonialism. By this theoretical approach, the study examines the author’s redefinition and re-rendition of an African historical past which hitherto had been a source of vilification, demonization and mischaracterization of Africa with the attendant denigration and unjust treatment of the people. The paper also interrogates the author’s language as a facilitator of the realization of the theme of historical re-orientation and deconstruction. The paper concludes that African writers involve in the undertaking of nation-building through literary creativity. Also, like the traditional griots, they are guardians of sacred history, as this manifest in the interrogation and re-imaging of false accounts about the people’s past