Rider Haggard

On race

Rider Haggard's works have been criticised for their depictions of non-Europeans. In his non-fiction book Decolonising the Mind, Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o refers to Haggard, who he says was one of the canonical authors in primary and secondary school, as one of the "geniuses of racism." Author and academic Micere Mugo wrote in 1973 that reading the description of "an old African woman in Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines had for a long time made her feel mortal terror whenever she encountered old African women."