Description
Book SynopsisNgugi wa Thiong''o was born the fifth child of his father''s third wife, in a family that includes twenty-four children born to four different mothers. He spent his 1930s childhood as the apple of his mother''s eye, before attending school to slake what is considered a bizarre thirst for learning.
As he grows up, the wider political and social changes occurring in Kenya begin to impinge on the boy''s life in both inspiring and frightening ways. Through the story of his grandparents and parents, and his brothers'' involvement in the violent Mau Mau uprising, Ngugi deftly etches a tumultuous era, capturing the landscape, the people and their culture, and the social and political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war.
Trade ReviewIn his crowded career and his eventful life, Ngugi has enacted, for all to see, the paradigmatic trials and quandaries of a contemporary African writer caught in sometimes implacable political, social, racial, and linguistic currents -- John Updike * The New Yorker *
Delicate, fresh and scrupulously honest...calm and mature * Spectator *
Moving, honest and informative, this is a book about the influence of stories, storytelling and storytellers. It is a reminder that every generation, however beleaguered, can dream to change the world * Independent *
The work he offers us here is like nothing that's gone before: it is the chronicle of a child's single-minded pursuit of an education.... The picture of Kenya that he presents is admirably free of cant or sentimentality, and yet it is enough to make you weep * Washington Post *
Ngugi has returned to his roots to produce something delicate, fresh and scrupulously honest -- Michela Wrong * The Spectator *
