First published 2012
Young Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo attends a British-run boarding school near Nairobi as the Mau Mau Uprising tears through Kenya. He plays chess and goes on scouting expeditions while his homeland fights for independence. Colonial forces burn his family home to the ground. His brother joins the insurgency and ends up captured in a British concentration camp. Ngũgĩ tries to focus on his studies, but the violence of colonialism eventually reaches him too. The authorities jail him after his own confrontation with colonial power. These formative experiences at school and beyond shape the young man who will become a celebrated writer and political voice. The memoir captures how a student becomes an artist and activist. It shows the costs of resistance and the strength found in youth and hope during a nation's struggle for freedom.
Genres: 20th-century, african-literature, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Kenya, Nairobi
Period: 20th Century, World War II
256 pages · Hardcover · Hrvill Secker
Content warnings: colonialism, violence