Overview

One of Oprah.com's 17 Must-Read Books for the New Year and O Magazine's 10 Titles to Pick up Now. Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time. --Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Guardian, Best Books of 2016. Every page ripples with a contagious faith in education and in the power of literature to shape the imagination and scour the conscience. --The Washington Post From one of the world's greatest writers, the story of how the author found his voice as a novelist at Makerere University in Uganda Birth of a Dream Weaver charts the very beginnings of a writer's creative output. In this wonderful memoir, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o recounts the four years he spent at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda--threshold years during which he found his voice as a journalist, short story writer, playwright, and novelist just as colonial empires were crumbling and new nations were being born--under the shadow of the rivalries, intrigues, and assassinations of the Cold War. Haunted by the memories of the carnage and mass incarceration carried out by the British colonial-settler state in his native Kenya but inspired by the titanic struggle against it, Ngugi, then known as James Ngugi, begins to weave stories from the fibers of memory, history, and a shockingly vibrant and turbulent present. What unfolds in this moving and thought-provoking memoir is simultaneously the birth of one of the most important living writers--lauded for his epic imagination (Los Angeles Times)--the death of one of the most violent episodes in global history, and the emergence of new histories and nations with uncertain futures.

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9781713556077

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Reviews

Evocative, poignant, and thoughtful, Thiong'o's courageous narrative will linger in readers' minds. --Publishers Weekly (starred) A writer's coming-of-age tale featuring an artistic mix of pride and humility. --Kirkus Reviews An autobiographical masterpiece. . . As essential as Achebe's There Was a Country, this is a riveting read in African history and literature. --Library Journal (starred) This is a powerful recollection of a turbulent time that produced leaders from Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta to the tyrannical Idi Amin in response to the brutality of a dying colonialism. --Booklist In 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 Ngugi has dedicated his life to describing, satirising and destabilising the corridors of power...Still living in exile and writing primarily in Gikuyu, Ngugi continues to spin captivating tales. --The Guardian Ngugi has flown over the entire African continent and sniffed out all of the foul stenches rising high into the air: complacency toward despotism, repression of women and ethnic minorities, widespread corruption and--undergirding all of these--a neocolonial system in which today's lending banks and multinationals have supplanted yesterday's European overlords. --The New York Times Book Review

Evocative, poignant, and thoughtful, Thiong'o's courageous narrative will linger in readers' minds. --Publishers Weekly (starred) A writer's coming-of-age tale featuring an artistic mix of pride and humility. --Kirkus Reviews An autobiographical masterpiece. . . As essential as Achebe's There Was a Country, this is a riveting read in African history and literature. --Library Journal (starred) This is a powerful recollection of a turbulent time that produced leaders from Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta to the tyrannical Idi Amin in response to the brutality of a dying colonialism. --Booklist

In 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 Ngugi has dedicated his life to describing, satirising and destabilising the corridors of power...Still living in exile and writing primarily in Gikuyu, Ngugi continues to spin captivating tales. --The Guardian Ngugi has flown over the entire African continent and sniffed out all of the foul stenches rising high into the air: complacency toward despotism, repression of women and ethnic minorities, widespread corruption and--undergirding all of these--a neocolonial system in which today's lending banks and multinationals have supplanted yesterday's European overlords. --The New York Times Book Review Evocative, poignant, and thoughtful, Thiong'o's courageous narrative will linger in readers' minds. --Publishers Weekly (starred) A writer's coming-of-age tale featuring an artistic mix of pride and humility. --Kirkus Reviews An autobiographical masterpiece. . . As essential as Achebe's There Was a Country, this is a riveting read in African history and literature. --Library Journal (starred) This is a powerful recollection of a turbulent time that produced leaders from Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta to the tyrannical Idi Amin in response to the brutality of a dying colonialism. --Booklist

Author Information

One of the leading writers and scholars at work today, Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1938. He is the author of A Grain of Wheat; Weep Not, Child; and Petals of Blood, as well as Birth of a Dream Weaver and Wrestling with the Devil (The New Press). He has been nominated for, among other honors, the Man Booker International Prize and is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

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