Barrel of a Pen is a collection of essays that vigorously responds to the atmosphere of repression and domination in Kenya. Ngũgĩ argues that the defense of national culture and national identity... Read more »
Born in 1938 in rural Kenya, world renowned revolutionary writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o came of age in the shadow of World War II, amidst the terrible bloodshed in the war for national... Read more »
The second volume of the world renowned revolutionary writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s memoir picks up right where volume one left off. He enters into the “prestigious” colonial Alliance High School which he... Read more »
Matigari ma Njirũũngi (which means in Gĩkũyũ “the patriots who survived the bullets”—the patriot who survived the liberation war, and their political offspring), descends the mountains victorious after fighting in the long independence... Read more »
The international outcry over Ngũgĩ’s detention without trial by the Kenyan authorities reached him even in Kamĩtĩ Maximum Security Prison. With great accomplishment, he describes the purposeful degradation and humiliation of the... Read more »
A Grain of Wheat portrays several characters in a village whose intertwined lives are transformed by the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. The action follows the village’s arrangements for Uhuru (independence) Day... Read more »
This book is an extensive analysis of the roles played by African women in seven revolutionary movements in post World War II Africa. The revolutionary movements covered in this book occurred in:... Read more »
Caroline Elkins, a historian at Harvard University, has done a masterful job setting the record straight in her epic investigation, Imperial Reckoning. After years of research in London and Kenya, including interviews... Read more »
Mau Mau and Kenya traces a unique peasant revolt against British colonialism. Maloba describes the participants and their differing ideologies; relationships between the revolt and the conventional party politics of the Kenya... Read more »
The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in neocolonial Kenya. While Ngũgĩ’s novels are generally set in Kenya, Ngũgĩ... Read more »