In taking stock of Ngugi's career to date, and as we ponder the effects of exile on his fictional works, three questions need to be addressed: Where does he stand in the canon of African writing? What influence have his works had on the shaping and reshaping of this tradition of letters? Can we pass any useful judgments on the aesthetic or cultural values of his major novels and plays?

In response to the first question, it is important to note that Ngugi started writing at a time when many African countries had become independent and in a period when African writing, though not wholly institutionalized as a field of study, was no longer a novelty. What this meant, among other things, was that unlike the first generation of modern African writers, most notably Peter Abrahams, Camara Laye, and Chinua Achebe, Ngugi's literary beginnings were marked by the reality of decolonization, the inevitable end of the narrative of colonization that had dominated African writing for at least two centuries. Colonialism was no longer the central facet of African life when Ngugi started writing his major works. On the contrary, the narrative of independence dominated the context in which his works were produced, the emergence of new nations in which, it was hoped, autonomy and freedom would be instituted on the continent. Ngugi's postcolonial identity explains both his relation to – and difference from - the pioneering generation of African writers of whom Achebe is the best Anglophone example.