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Dreams in a Time of War

(Memoirs #1)

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

3.91 · Rating details · 1,095 ratings · 138 reviews

By the world-renowned novelist, playwright, critic, and author of Wizard of the Crow, an evocative and affecting memoir of childhood.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 in rural Kenya to a father whose four wives bore him more than a score of children. The man who would become one of Africa’s leading writers was the fifth child of the third wife. Even as World War II affec ...more

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Hardcover, 272 pages

Published March 9th 2010 by Pantheon (first published January 1st 2005)

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Mar 06, 2014 Zanna rated it really liked it

Shelves: g-african-reads

Because I have just recently read Weep Not Child I was able to compare truth and fiction; evidently Ngugi drew on his own childhood experiences to write that early book, making Njoroge an avatar for himself. Certain scenes are common to both books, and it seems to me that Njoroge is a reflection of what young Ngugi might have become with less intelligence and good guidance. In this account, the protagonist comes off rather better, modesty unable to repress the fact of his admission to the countr Because I have just recently read Weep Not Child I was able to compare truth and fiction; evidently Ngugi drew on his own childhood experiences to write that early book, making Njoroge an avatar for himself. Certain scenes are common to both books, and it seems to me that Njoroge is a reflection of what young Ngugi might have become with less intelligence and good guidance. In this account, the protagonist comes off rather better, modesty unable to repress the fact of his admission to the country's most selective high school. Known as quiet, respectful and sensitive, he values each member of his family, and resists colonising influences. For example, he reports an incident that occurred when he went to a sports festival with his younger brother and, seeing some classmates and older boys, was embarrassed by his brother's 'traditional garb', and separated from him, but was quickly much more embarrassed by the impulse, and subsequently became closer to and more protective of his brother. Ngugi's family, with four 'mothers', is much more complicated than Njoroge's in Weep Not Child! Like Njoroge, he respects his carpenter half-brother and is captivated by stories from the Old Testament. The novel simplifies and dramatises real events and circumstances, but is rooted in reality.

In Weep Not Child the Indian/Asian Kenyan community is presented as disliked by the Black/African Kenyans via second hand white supremacy, but it seems to me that here Ngugi does not explicitly confront this racism. The Asians appear here as a community apart, but Ngugi and his brother do play with some Asian children and accept gifts from them. Much more is made of the links between anti-colonial intellectuals and resistance activists in Kenya and India, for example between Harry Thaku and Gandhi. Thaku also had links with Marcus Garvey, Ngugi points out, building up an impression of international decolonial organising laying down pathways for others to follow. Later, Ngugi's mentor Ngandi dramatises the links between Kenyatta's trial and the Gandhi-Nehru administration, which not only sent lawyers then, but had a long history of solidarity with Kenyans.

The memoir form makes possible a depth of mature political analysis, contextualisation and the benefit of hindsight. For me the most interesting topic was the independent teacher's college, which was closed down and turned into a place of execution by the colonial state. Ngugi tightly integrates political commentary with the narrative, for example describing how one black teacher refused to run when called by a white inspector and refused to call him sir, and how the class held him in awe for restoring their lost pride in their teachers and themselves. This episode concludes a fascinating chapter describing how independent (or rather, organised by collective native effort) schools were banned and how the curriculum changed

In the old school teachers told us about African kings like Shaka, Cetshwayo. They told us a bit about the white conquest and settlements in South African and Kenya. But now the emphasis was on white explorers like Livingstone, Stanley, Rebman and Krapf. We learned in positive terms about the establishment of Christian missions. We learned that white people had discovered Mount Kenya and many of our lakes, including Lake Victoria. In the old school, Kenya was a black man's country. In the new school, Kenya, like South Africa, was represented as having been sparsely populated before the whites arrived, and so whites occupied the uninhabited areas. Where, as in Tigoni in Limuru, they had taken African lands, the previous occupants had been compensated. There had also been tribal wars. White people brought medicine, progress, peace. The teachers were of course following the official government-approved syllabus under which students would eventually be examined

This is what we are taught in British schools and through other cultural channels here too. In this memoir, we can see how these lies were at least partly rejected, or at least viewed critically, even by children like Ngugi. The schools also now punished students for speaking Gikuyu, using an insidious strategy; the first child to speak Gikuyu would be given a piece of metal, which would be passed to whoever was heard speaking it next. Whoever had it at the end of the day was beaten.

Circumcision is another political topic that receives important contextualisation here. The African Origin of Civilization, Cheikh Anta Diop comments that the cosmogony of circumcision comes from Egyptian tradition, and Ngugi briefly explains its importance in Gikuyu culture (later in the book is an account of his own 'initiation', from which its depth of significance and centrality as a rite of passage becomes very clear). For some reason, circumcising boys has excited little political feeling, but when it comes to girls, the issue is incendiary. Ngugi's explanation is extremely illuminating:

the African Inland Mission, which had already condemned the practice as barbaric and unchristian, went further in their campaign against the practice and announced that all their African teachers and agents would have to sign a declaration solemnly swearing never to circumcise female children; never to become a member of the Kikuyu Central Association, the leading African political organisation at the time; never to become a follower of Jomo Kenyatta, the KCA's general secretary... and never to join any party unless it was organized by the government or missionaries.

Thus, female circumcision was aligned with anti-colonial political resistance. Reading this was the hugest A-HA moment for me; when white feminists shout out against the practice, regardless of ignorance or intent, we are echoing colonial oppressors attempting to crush decolonising struggle. Much care and nuance is needed...

Ngugi also discusses government propaganda, which presented Mau-Mau actions as senseless and without reason. Ngandi points out to him that this is the colonial viewpoint, and fills in the gaps that are left by the reports, both critiquing the chaotic impression 'the guerillas are under strict orders from Marshall Dedan Kimathi not to kill at random. The guerillas could not survive without support from the people' and explaining the history and intent behind the struggle. He also exposes the indiscriminately lethal colonial response. This reminded me of The In Between World of Vikram Lall which also presents the Mau Mau struggle as senseless and disorderly, focussing on the violence.

Recently I was lucky enough to catch a production of the Lorraine Hansberry play Les Blancs at the National Theatre in London. Here, in an unnamed colonised country, it is emphasised that the native people have tried everything possible before violence, while the colonising state's first resort is terror and slaughter. Great African Reads Group's focus on Kenya this year, in combination with my reading of The Wretched of the Earth and the play, have so far been extremely helpful for me in understanding whiteness and imperialism better.

From the very beginning, Ngugi describes storytelling traditions in his community and family and mentions how he loved the way his sister Wabia used to retell the previous evening's stories in the day time; perhaps because of her blindness, the daylight does not drive away tales for her. Schoolchildren on their long walks home vie to tell stories best, crowding together to hear. Given Ngugi's passion for the practice, it is not surprising that this story, crafted out of many tales as a feast is made up of many dishes, is composed with a glorious combination of precision, materiality, and fluidity. While a timeline can be mapped, the telling leaps around it judiciously to better dramatise and contextualise its key scenes and events, sliding from past to present tense to modulate mood and mode, as if cutting from narration to flashback. It is no mean feat this, to make memoir dance and enthrall like a tale told in the night.
...more

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Dec 11, 2013 Cheryl rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Readers of colonial and post colonial memoirs, history fanatics

Shelves: africa, global-intrigue, post-colonial, memoirs

Even when not reading it, I can hear the music. The choice and arrangements of the words, the cadence, I can’t pick any one thing that makes it so beautiful and long-lived in my memory. I realize that even written words can carry the music I loved in stories, particularly the choric melody. And yet this is not a story; it is a descriptive statement. It does not carry an illustration. It is a picture in itself and yet more than a picture and a description. It is music. Written words can also s

Even when not reading it, I can hear the music. The choice and arrangements of the words, the cadence, I can’t pick any one thing that makes it so beautiful and long-lived in my memory. I realize that even written words can carry the music I loved in stories, particularly the choric melody. And yet this is not a story; it is a descriptive statement. It does not carry an illustration. It is a picture in itself and yet more than a picture and a description. It is music. Written words can also sing.

They sing, they enchant, they teach, they tell stories. Even in memoir. Especially in memoir. It is as Vladimir Nabokov once said (Lectures on Literature) the writer must be an enchanter, teacher, and storyteller. Thiong'o is all of these things.

Penetrating details. In fact at times those details help distract you from the fact that there are numerous characters, too many characters that they are mostly forgettable, characters with intricate names like those of a Russian novel, characters who appear for one-liners or in a paragraph or two. These descriptive details distract you from the array of characters because the details become the major incidents, the characters only minor placements.

And this is why I love memoirs: historical and personal contexts combined. I find myself researching Harry Thuku, pondering India's ties to Kenya and the influence that leaders like Gandhi and Garvey had across the globe.

But back to Nabokov and the teacher, enchanter, storyteller statement.

The storytelling: A young boy who finds joy in books, but sometimes sees himself uprooted from his African schools because of British colonialism. A distinct family life within a small village. A boy abandoned by his father but brought to manhood through his village's customs. Then he learns that someone close to him is involved with the anti-colonial movement deemed illegal.

The education: Italian prisoners of war and builders in colonial Kenya (they surrendered during the East African campaign during 1941); the Indian community within Kenya, how this would later affect the landscape of tea-picking (tea seeds from India were introduced to his town in 1903); the link between Kenyan nationalism, Gandhian nationalism and Garveyite black nationalism; the rise of the famous activist and nationalist leader, Kenyatta—whose death Kenyan writer, Binyavanga Wainaina later mentions in his acclaimed memoir: One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir.

The enchantment:

Oh yes, such a day it was! The crop was in bloom, the entire field covered with pea flowers of different colors. I always remember the butterflies, so many; and I was not afraid of the bees that competed with the butterflies. He took out a bead necklace and said: Will you wear this for me? Well, I did not say yes or no, but I took it and wore it, she said with an audible sigh.
...more

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Apr 06, 2014 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: location-kenya, around-the-world, location-africa, read2014, biography-memoir, great-african-reads

I wish I had read this after reading Thiong'o's fiction. I will do that someday. This is an account of his childhood in Kenya from 1938 until he enters highschool/secondary school. This is during the time of the Mau Mau Uprising, which had a direct impact on his daily life.

I know people who were missionaries in Kenya directly after this period, so it filled in some gaps for me. Call me naive but I didn't really understand post-WWII colonialism very well. Goodness.

I loved seeing him in the role ...more

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May 15, 2013 Chrissie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kenya, alt, audible, bio, history, 2013-read

Enjoyable and informative, definitely worth reading if you are curious to know more about the Mau Mau Rebellion 1952-1960 which lead to Kenyan Independence from Britain in 1963. Laid before you are the author's childhood memories up to his acceptance and arrival at high school. He is today a famed, contemporary African writer. This book focuses upon his quest for education, something all too many of us take for granted. It is about native Kenyan life. He was born in 1938, the fifth child of his ...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Philip rated it it was amazing

Put simply, Dreams In A Time Of War by Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a beautiful book. But it is also challenging, engaging, shocking, endearing and enraging at the same time. It also offers truly enlightening insight into the psychology, motivation and eventual expression of a great writer. Anyone who ha admired Ngugi’s A Grain of Wheat will adore Dreams In A Time Of War, because the fiction that rendered the novel such a complex and rewarding read is here as reality, in all its greater rawness of immed Put simply, Dreams In A Time Of War by Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a beautiful book. But it is also challenging, engaging, shocking, endearing and enraging at the same time. It also offers truly enlightening insight into the psychology, motivation and eventual expression of a great writer. Anyone who ha admired Ngugi’s A Grain of Wheat will adore Dreams In A Time Of War, because the fiction that rendered the novel such a complex and rewarding read is here as reality, in all its greater rawness of immediacy, contradiction and conflict.

Dreams In A Time Of War is an autobiography, covering Ngugi’s infant and childhood memories until the day he left home, as an adolescent primary school graduate, to join Alliance High School. Thus we journey in Ngugi’s account from a homestead shared with a father, four wives and numerous siblings to the start of a Western education with its subject boundaries and prescribed canals of thinking. It would be easy to suggest that this represented a journey from the traditional to the modern, but that would be naïve. It would also miss the point.

Tradition, in Ngugi’s recollections, is extremely important, especially the magic of language. Words, clearly, were always for him much more than labels. The Kikuyu language that was his birthright offered a richness of expression and meaning - not to mention an identity - that fired his imagination from a very young age. It was also a language that was denied and derided by at least part of an education system that proselytised on behalf of the colonial, the modern. Throughout Dreams In A Time Of War we are aware of this potential for conflict, where the clearly academically gifted young Ngugi yearns to read and learn, but is regularly reminded that the only acceptable vehicle for that activity was the English language. For some who emerged through the vicious selection for entry into the educated elite, this denial of identity led to a rejection of birthright, origin and perhaps culture, so that they might more completely and convincingly adopt the new status to which they aspired. In Ngugi’s case, this demanded denial of his own background led him to appreciate it, its values and its worth more acutely. It is a mark of the book and equally the man’s complexity, however, that he not only retained an insider’s appreciation and understanding of his birthright, but also embraced the English language and education to become one of the language’s greatest writers.

Ngugi’s description of tradition is never static. At the same time, his view of modernity is never uni-dimensional. He recognises that his people’s ceremonies have changed over the years and that their significance has altered. Old men’s stories may still enthral the young, but the world described has already changed. Farmers have been driven from their land. Estates growing crops for cash and bounded by fences have been established. Factories offering wage labour have opened. Many of the structures that bound families and communities together have been transformed, perhaps not broken down, but have at least been challenged by new allegiances and aspirations.

Equally the modern is not presented as a monolith. Two different education systems coexist, one that transmits only Christianity and European values, and one that admits local language and learning. In the same way that individuals are influenced by what they are taught, they are also transformed by their experience of employment, of nurture by institutions and comradeship. In Kenya, for some this included loyalty to King and country via service in two world wars, acceptance of Christianity, responsibility to exacting employers and land owners, as well as, for others, acknowledgement of and adherence to tradition, family values and kinship transmitted by oral culture. And the reality that Ngugi portrays so beautifully in this book is that these apparently opposing poles were often mixed up within the individual, almost every individual.

If there is still anyone who retains the notion that British Imperialism was tantamount to spreading pixie dust, then such a person ought to read Ngugi’s childhood memoir. Here are descriptions of hooded informers - no doubt paid to say the right names, of indiscriminate detention, concentration camps and cold-blooded murder. And all this was backed up by a wholly unjustified and erroneous assumption of racial superiority. By the way, it’s about the same way they treated the working class back home, even down to denying most of them access to the educational goodies that legitimise social class identity.

Readers please do not be put off by the difficulties posed by the Kikuyu names and words. If they are unfamiliar, then find a way of summarising and merely recognising them. But do read this beautiful childhood memoir and thus do understand a little more of the experiences that motivate writers - and others – to explain. The view is partial, of course, that is why it is both entertaining and illuminating.
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Feb 17, 2015 Darkowaa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I didn't think this book would have such an impact on me. The ending had me in tears. Every time I read a Kenyan novel, I'm more eager to learn about the country's past- its such a great country. This is a very, very touching novel. Ngugi wrote this with such love and care - well, obviously, its his childhood memoir! But honestly, I admire and respect him a lot - especially the family he came from and his mother. Family units play a HUGE role in the future of children and this novel demonstrates ...more

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Aug 15, 2017 Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) rated it really liked it

Shelves: i-was-there-books, memoirs, non-fiction

Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you.Validation is best that comes from within.

Imagine a world where the lack of shoes and stockings can stand in the way of a highschool diploma.

Imagine a world where your exam results don't qualify you for highschool, but you are admitted to a "teacher training school."

As happened when I read The Diary of Ma Yan: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese Schoolgirl, what str Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you.Validation is best that comes from within.

Imagine a world where the lack of shoes and stockings can stand in the way of a highschool diploma.

Imagine a world where your exam results don't qualify you for highschool, but you are admitted to a "teacher training school."

As happened when I read The Diary of Ma Yan: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese Schoolgirl, what struck me most was again the fact that even today, for a large proportion of the world's population, any formal education is a privilege--and higher education an impossible dream. Education is the refuge, the "dream in time of war" referenced in the title. The child-Nugugi dreams of going to school, of learning, of obtaining a "licence to write". He is convinced that without that licence, as an African writer he would be imprisoned. He wasn't far wrong, given that most African-language newspapers were banned during Kenya's state of emergency--a euphemism for civil war. This volume of his memoirs covers his young childhood until the day he learns he has been accepted into Alliance High School, the most prestigious school in the country (for Africans).

Piecing this and that together to make a coherent story the way Ngandi did is difficult: It is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing. It may have been the same for Ngandi, but he replaced the missing pieces with his fertile imagination. It is okay if I don't reach thelevel of the master narrator, I comfort myself, because I don't have to tell my stories to listeners eager to eat from the palm of my hand. Perhaps those "missing pieces" reflect the child's comprehension of the incomprehensible events that surround him in a world not geared to children--the scrappy narrative, particularly in the first third of the book, the changes of tense and mood sometimes in mid-sentence. Some events encountered in In the House of the Interpreter are first told here; they were re-narrated later in the light of his expanded understanding of the events surrounding them. I was again struck by the contrast between the history of white settlement of "unoccupied, uninhabited" lands in Kenya as narrated by Elspeth Huxley and others like her, and the dispossessed whose land came under the "soldier settler" plan. If the past is another country, the past told by the invader is a different universe.

If I have a complaint it is that there are too many unidentified characters who are named but never placed within the narrative; too many African names of organisations, groups etc that bring the uninformed reader up short. Only if you are on your toes can you realise, "Oh, wait--that's the newspaper"; and sometimes not then. ...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Moses Kilolo rated it really liked it

All known truths lead to the fact that Ngugi is an iconic figure not only in Kenyan but African as well as the world literature. But where did he come from, and what was it like during his baby steps and subsequent ascend? Well, in this brilliantly captured childhood memoir, Ngugi tells of his time growing up in colonial Kenya and its coincidence with the fight for freedom. Its inevitable that he'd write about politics, his books contain so much of it, and Kenyan history indeed. I just read Cama ...more

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Dec 02, 2010 Virginia rated it liked it

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, read-2011

I first read about this book on Christianity Today's website under their book reviews and was so intrigued! This book really was quite the history lesson on Kenya and an immense culture shock. The reason it took me so long (it was just two sessions of reading separated by a few weeks) is because the subject matter is so hard. It's silly because Thiong'o really doesn't dwell on the suffering (nor does he gloss over it). However, the history of Kenya is a hard thing. It hurts my heart to read abou ...more

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Feb 20, 2019 John Benson rated it it was amazing

Though I grew up in East Africa, I am ashamed to say I didn't read many African authors until much later in life. I did read about people like me, who were wazungus (Europeans) there, but not by many African citizens. In 2005, when I was in Tanzania, I began reading them and I especially enjoyed some of Ngugi wa Thiong'o's novels. He wrote so well, explained his ideas clearly, and brought out Kenyan life in the colonial era so well. Always meant to get back to him and now I found this memoir of ...more

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Mar 06, 2017 Ahmed Masoud rated it it was amazing

Fantastic account of coming of age in colonial Kenya, heartbreaking and funny in an endearing way. Definitely recommend this book, it would take you to Kenya to feel it for yourself

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Dec 26, 2020 Kimron rated it really liked it

Kenya <3
A lovely memoir for anyone who has spent time in Kenya, surprising and made me smile a lot.
His writing is smooth, and I liked this non-fiction story much more than Weep Not, Child.

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Apr 14, 2017 Mish Middelmann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I bought this book at the wonderful Bridge Books. It was great to re-encounter one of my favourite authors from the 1970s.

What struck me most about this childhood memoir is its direct and deep insight into daily life of ordinary Kenyans in the 1950s during the anti-colonial struggle. Families and communities are split as some find it best to collaborate in some way with the colonial power, others ally themselves with local power figures, and yet others join the national resistance movement (the I bought this book at the wonderful Bridge Books. It was great to re-encounter one of my favourite authors from the 1970s.

What struck me most about this childhood memoir is its direct and deep insight into daily life of ordinary Kenyans in the 1950s during the anti-colonial struggle. Families and communities are split as some find it best to collaborate in some way with the colonial power, others ally themselves with local power figures, and yet others join the national resistance movement (the Mau Mau of course looks very different to Kenyans than to colonists). Probably the biggest struggle in Ngugi's immediate family is being forced off their land by another Kenyan whose expansionist land acquisition is helped by his alliance with Christian missionaries.

I love the deep confidence underlying Ngugi's writing, even when he tells stories about his own vulnerability. He also gives wonderful insights into the gifts of reading, writing and learning that he has been so abundantly blessed with, and was willing to fight to manifest in the world.

My personal aha as a white colonial descendant was about multiple names not necessarily causing identity confusion. Ngugi tells us just how many ways he can and could be named while growing up - including as the son of his mother, as his father's son, the son of his father's third wife, as "younger brother" or with his family nickname. Yet he wasn't in doubt about who he was. It contrasts with my preference to be called by the same name by everybody, and to have a single integrated online identity. It strikes me that his plethora of names acknowledges the extent and range of his polygamous family relationships and ancestry in a good way, where my heritage tends to monogamy and pays less attention to extended family.

This book ends on the point of Ngugi's entry into high school. I look forward to going back to Bridge Books to buy the second volume of his memoirs. Somebody with the courage to live his dreams in a time of war is a model for us all. ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Chris Harrison rated it liked it

"Dreams in a Time of War" is an important book. As the subtitle states, these stories are Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s memories of growing up in Kenya during very turbulent times. Ngũgĩ was born just prior to World War Two. These memories are predominantly from the 1950’s, which were a very turbulent time in Kenya. They are centred around Ngũgĩ’s desire for education and the sacrifices he and his mother make, so that he can attend elementary school and have an opportunity to be one of the few people in h ...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Booknblues rated it really liked it

Shelves: war, memoir, nonfiction, africa, coming-of-age

Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o describes his childhood and coming of age in Kenya in the 1940’s and 1950’s. It is a really touching story of a young boy’s thirst for knowledge and clearly provides the perspective of a native of Kenya.

Ngugi describes what life was like for him growing up in Kenya in a polygamous family. His father had four wives and many children. Ngugi’s mother was the third wife and Ngugi lived in her hut with his full siblings. The wives forme ...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Wangũi rated it it was amazing

I really want to read the rest of his memoirs now after reading this childhood one-I almost didn't believe it when the book ended right as he got to high school.
The story of Ngũgĩ's childhood life not only gives insight into life and the pursuit of knowledge at a time in Kenya's history when for political and economic reasons neither was easy; but also was a window into the country's history and the culture of the Agikũyũ.
For example, I enjoyed finding out about tradition as practised by his un ...more

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Oct 27, 2017 Ibrahim Aliyu rated it liked it

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Theres nothing like a dream to create the future - victor hugo

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i have learnt
From books dear friend
Of men dreaming and living
And hungering in a room without a light
Who could not die since death was far too poor
Who did not sleep to dream, but dreamed to change change the world.- Martin Carter, " looking at your hands"

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In the dark times
Will there be singing ?
Yes, there will be singing
About dark times. - Bertolt Brecht, "Motto"

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The Gikuyu have a saying that out of the same womb comes both a ...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Thuita Wachira rated it really liked it

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book...it gave me a rare insight into life as a young boy in colonial Kenya. I identified completely with the environment, cultures and life depicted in the book especially since it was set in Central Kenya. Its historical lessons aside, i found the stories in the book powerful and masterfully told: a common characteristic for all of Ngugi's books. I found it a bit short though, and i felt some of the more interesting characters and relationships Ngugi brought ou ...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Michael rated it really liked it

I had the great privilege to hear the author speak at Howard University. All the English 101 classes were reading his recent book of essays. I was very impressed with him. No wonder he is one of the most important African writers today. I look forward to reading this book. (I've just begun.) And I look forward to reading his second memoir, which recently came out. ...more

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Apr 23, 2010 Nnedi rated it really liked it

i love anything this man writes. but i wish this had been a bit more about ngugi and less about politics.

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Jan 27, 2016 Marisa rated it liked it

Shelves: britiish-coloniali-rule, desire-for-education, extreme-poverty, determination, africa, courage, hardships

HL English
It was okay, I liked it better than I thought I would but it wasn't really my type of book ...more

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Nov 07, 2017 Angela rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2017

***Click here to see all of my reviews on my blog***

I was glad that this book was chosen along with Born a Crime by Trevor No6716861ah for my monthly bookclub. I haven’t read many books about Africa or by African authors, and I haven’t traveled to that part of the world at all, and I think reading books like these is one of the best ways to learn about the history of different parts of the world.

Thiong’o’s childhood memoir certainly didn’t disappoint me. He grew up in Kenya in the ’40s and ’50s, ...more

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May 30, 2019 Tony Wainaina rated it it was amazing

I’ve never quite read a memoir like this before. I live in Tigoni, I know the Limuru marketplace well. The Bata shoe factory. Loreto Convent Limuru-just down the road from my home, and more significantly, my mother’s high school in the 1950s. The Manguo swamp. And on and on.... All so close to home. I was well inside this story. Never have I consumed the written word so completely.
Having one who has lived the history narrate their first hand experiences so eloquently - using all their senses, w ...more

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Jan 13, 2017 Claire rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, postcolonial, biography-memoir

After hearing Ngugi wa' Thiong'o talk about his third memoir, I decided to start with the first, his early life and education. As with the best memoirs, the personal life is related to the time and place where it was lived. Wa' Thiong'o moves easily and smoothly between the child voice of dim memory and the adult voice looking back on the times and filling in the background.

We learn about polygamous life and relationships: Ngugi was the fifth child of the third wife and had 23 siblings. We lear ...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Cathy rated it liked it

Shelves: culture, africa, memoir

Ngugi highlights a tense time in Kenya as the country struggled against British occupation. While the history was fascinating to see from an insider perspective, and Ngugi gives rich portraits of some of his family, the book disappointed me overall. The reading felt scattered and his telling of the history was often confusing-- sometimes to the point of incoherence. I wished he had told the story with a better eye to his broader audience. I think it is important that we non-Africans understand t ...more

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May 14, 2010 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, history, african-writers

Ngugi is one of my favorite writers and while this is a memoir and not his usual magical-realism fiction the prose is beautiful and simple - it flows very easily. Ngugi's story is fascinating and in the process of reading this book the reader is given an intimate portrait of Kenyan families at a time of great change and upheaval in Kenyan society that also, very gently, educates the reader on aspects of modern Kenyan history and some of the impacts of colonialism and the legacy (or scars) it lea ...more

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Feb 14, 2011 Paul Heidebrecht rated it it was amazing

Ngugi is probably Kenya's finest living writer even though he has spent much of his adult life in exile. Now in his 70s, he lived through the end of colonial rule in Kenya and the early years of Kenyan independence. This book is a memoir of his growing-up years in a Kenya that seems so distant and yet profoundly attractive. He takes us back to rural life in polygamous family tolerating the blatantly racist rule of British settlers and the British government. Ngugi also describes his encounters w ...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Rachael rated it really liked it

Ngugi's story is a miraculous one in that he is able to place himself in the context of the political times in Nigeria and still grow and reflect and explore the magnificence of life as a child and budding writer. This is part one in a two part memoir (along with In the House of the Interpreter) focusing on colonization and access to education for young Africans amidst corruption and then all the normal things children go through - like parental love/guidance/or neglect, love interest, friendshi ...more

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Jun 21, 2013 Amy O rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: international-relations

This book tells a beautiful tale of a child's emergence into adulthood in the midst of poverty, family politics and the colonial tensions against the nationalistic Kenyan movement. But I do not see the dirt, unrest and disaster in this book; rather, the soft memories of family intimacy, the hope for a future with education, and the play among school kids echo. This book is about resilience of dreams that must grow up in conditions too hard to tell. Thank you, ngugi, for sharing your story with u ...more

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Jan 11, 2017 Simona GB rated it really liked it

Shelves: 01-favorites, 10-low-gdp, 09-african

I've been waiting for a long time for such a great book, with a good story, well written, strong message, easily readable. I haven't experienced such a pleasure while reading since Dostoevsky and Turgenev.

The fact that it is a childhood memoir brings it even closer to me in terms of feeling connected to the author on a human level. I believe it, the whole story. It feels authentic. I have a man standing in front of me, telling me about his life, his culture, his village. And I totally get it. ...more

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About Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

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Kenyan teacher, novelist, essayist, and playwright, whose works function as an important link between the pioneers of African writing and the younger generation of postcolonial writers. After imprisonment in 1978, Ngũgĩ abandoned using English as the primary language of his work in favor of Gikuyu, his native tongue. The transition from colonialism to postcoloniality and the crisis of modernity ha Kenyan teacher, novelist, essayist, and playwright, whose works function as an important link between the pioneers of African writing and the younger generation of postcolonial writers. After imprisonment in 1978, Ngũgĩ abandoned using English as the primary language of his work in favor of Gikuyu, his native tongue. The transition from colonialism to postcoloniality and the crisis of modernity has been a central issues in a great deal of Ngũgĩ's writings.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was born in Kamiriithu, near Limuru, Kiambu District, as the fifth child of the third of his father's four wives. At that time Kenya was under British rule, which ended in 1963. Ngũgĩ's family belonged to the Kenya's largest ethnic group, the Gikuyu. His father, Thiong'o wa Nducu, was a peasant farmer, who was forced to become a squatter after the British Imperial Act of 1915. Ngũgĩ attended the mission-run school at Kamaandura in Limuru, Karinga school in Maanguu, and Alliance High School in Kikuyu. During these years Ngũgĩ became a devout Christian. However, at school he also learned about the Gikuyu values and history and underwent the Gikuyu rite of passage ceremony. Later he rejected Christianity, and changed his original name in 1976 from James Ngũgĩ, which he saw as a sign of colonialism, to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in honor of his Gikuyu heritage.

After receiving a B.A. in English at Makerere University College in Kampala (Uganda) in 1963, Ngũgĩ worked briefly as a journalist in Nairobi. He married in 1961. Over the next seventeen years his wife, Nyambura, gave birth to six children. In 1962 Ngũgĩ's play THE BLACK HERMIT was produced in Kampala. In 1964 he left for England to pursue graduate studies at the Leeds University in England.

The most prominent theme in Ngũgĩ's early work was the conflict between the individual and the community. As a novelist Ngũgĩ made his debut with WEEP NOT, CHILD (1964), which he started to write while he was at school in England. It was the first novel in English to be published by an East African author. Ngũgĩ used the Bildungsroman form to tell the story of a young man, Njoroge. He loses his opportunity for further education when he is caught between idealistic dreams and the violent reality of the colonial exploitation. THE RIVER BETWEEN (1965) had as its background the Mau Mau Rebellion (1952-1956). The story was set in the late 1920s and 1930s and depicted an unhappy love affair in a rural community divided between Christian converts and non-Christians.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT (1967) marked Ngũgĩ's break with cultural nationalism and his embracing of Fanonist Marxism. Ngũgĩ refers in the title to the biblical theme of self-sacrifice, a part of the new birth: "unless a grain of wheat die." The allegorical story of one man's mistaken heroism and a search for the betrayer of a Mau Mau leader is set in a village, which has been destroyed in the war. The author's family was involved in the Mau Mau uprising. Ngũgĩ's older brother had joined the movement, his stepbrother was killed, and his mother was arrested and tortured. Ngũgĩ's village suffered in a campaign.

In the 1960s Ngũgĩ was a reporter for the Nairobi Daily Nation and editor of Zuka from 1965 to 1970. He worked as a lecturer at several universities - at the University College in Nairobi (1967-69), at the Makerere University in Kampala (1969-70), and at the Northwestern University in Evanston in the United States (1970-71). Ngũgĩ had resigned from his post at Nairobi University as a protest against government interference in the university, be he joined the faculty in 1973, becoming an associate professor and chairman of the department of literature. It had been formed in response to his and his colleagues' criticism of English - the British government had made in the 1950s instruction in English mandatory. Ngũgĩ had asked in an article, written with Taban lo Liyong and Henry Owuor-Anyumba, "If there is need for a 's ...more

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Anne Lamott, the beloved writer of memoirs including Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies, once said, “You own everything that happened to you....

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“Written words can also sing.” — 401 likes

“Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within.” — 18 likes

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