Africa and the Metaphysical Empire

This book investigates whether African cultures can appropriate some useful aspects of Western cultures, or whether doing so risks falling into the metaphysical empire and diluting African identity.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ndlovu-Gatsheni characterise the metaphysical empire as an intangible non-physical and non-geographical invasion of the mental universe of formerly colonised peoples. As mutual exclusivists, they argue that authentic decolonization necessitates a complete dissociation of the...