Devil on the Cross, first published in Gikuyu as Caitaani Mutharabaini (1980) and here in Swahili as Shetani Msalabani, is a portrayal of corruption and how it has entrenched itself into the society. The celebration of corruption in all its forms, forces Wariinga, whom despair has driven out of Nairobi back to her home town of llmorog, to acknowledge that her life has been nothing more than passive acceptance of corruption itself. In this novel, the ancient rhythms of traditional story-telling are used in counterpoint to written styles. Ngugi provokes with the forces of Brecht, Bunyan, Swift...
Devil on the Cross, first published in Gikuyu as Caitaani Mutharabaini (1980) and here in Swahili as Shetani Msalabani, is a portrayal of corruption a...
Should Remi, the first of his tribe to go to university, return to his people from the city? Should he return to Thoni, his brothers widow, whom he has had to marry under tribal custom? Or should he continue to be a black hermit in the town, visiting the night clubs with his friend, Jane? Should he be supporting the Africanist Party when people feel that the colonial oppression has just been replaced by another form? These are the dramatic conflicts in this play. Ngugi wa Thiongo is best known internationally as a novelist as well as a playwright. He wrote "This Time Tomorrow" (published in...
Should Remi, the first of his tribe to go to university, return to his people from the city? Should he return to Thoni, his brothers widow, whom he ha...
The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's powerful first novel Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their futures: Njoroge is to attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. But this is Kenya, and the times are against them: In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up. The first East...
The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's powerful first novel Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their...
The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's best-known novel
Set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya's independence from Britain, A Grain of Wheat follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952-1960 Emergency. At the center of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village's chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret. As we learn of the villagers' tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly story unfolds in...
The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's best-known novel
Set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Ken...
Es'kia Mphahlele's seminal memoir of life in apartheid South Africa--available for the first time in Penguin Classics
Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1969, Es'kia Mphahlele is considered the Dean of African Letters and the father of black South African writing. Down Second Avenue is a landmark book that describes Mphahlele's experience growing up in segregated South Africa. Vivid, graceful, and unapologetic, it details a daily life of severe poverty and brutal police surveillance under the subjugation of an apartheid regime. Banned in South Africa after its original 1959...
Es'kia Mphahlele's seminal memoir of life in apartheid South Africa--available for the first time in Penguin Classics
Renowned novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was a student at a prestigious, British-run boarding school near Nairobi when the tumultuous Mau Mau Uprising for independence and Kenyan sovereignty gripped his country. While he enjoyed scouting trips and chess tournaments, his family home was razed to the ground and his brother, a member of the insurgency, was captured by the British and taken to a concentration camp. But Ngũgĩ could not escape history, and eventually found himself jailed after a run in with the forces of colonialism....
Renowned novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was a student at a prestigious, British-run boarding school near ...
