Excursus: Friendship in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Matigari

Abstract Ngũgĩ’s propagation of his socio-political vision depends importantly on the representation of intimate relationships across his fiction. Intimate relationships characterised by romantic love seem to be a consistent focal point in Ngũgĩ’s oeuvre. However, in Matigari (1987), the penultimate novel he published, Ngũgĩ’s narrative suggests the possibility of the exploration of another central romantic relationship, but, unexpectedly, the novel commutes romantic love into friendship. This is the case since friendship serves as the foundation on which almost all the intimate relationships that have been identified in the earlier novels is built. This paper focuses on friendship rather than romantic love in the novel, Matigari. There is an exploration of a strong bond between Matigari and Gũthera to fight the oppressor and to set the oppressed free.