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Dreams in a Time of War

A Childhood Memoir

By Wa'Thiong'O, Ngugi

Publishers Summary:
By the world-renowned novelist, playwright, critic, and author of Wizard of the Crow, an evocative and affecting memoir of childhood. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 in rural Kenya to a father whose four wives bore him more than a score of children. The man who would become one of Africa’s leading writers was the fifth child of the third wife. Even as World War II affected the lives of Africans under British colonial rule in particularly unexpected ways, Ngugi spent his childhood as very much the apple of his mother’s eye before attending school to slake what was then considered a bizarre thirst for learning. In Dreams in a Time of War, Ngugi deftly etches a bygone era, capturing the landscape, the people, and their culture; the social and political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war; and the troubled relationship between an emerging Christianized middle class and the rural poor. And he shows how the Mau Mau armed struggle for Kenya’s independence against the British informed not only his own life but also the lives of those closest to him. Dreams in a Time of War speaks to the human right to dream even in the worst of times. It abounds in delicate and powerful subtleties and complexities that are movingly told.

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ISBN
978-0-30737-883-5
Publisher
Pantheon


REVIEWS

Library Journal

Reviewed on January 21, 2010

Man Booker International Prize nominee Thiong'o (Wizard of the Crow) here tells the story of growing up in Kenya under the shadow of two wars: World War II (in which Kenya, a colony of Great Britain, fought with the Allies) and later, Kenya's brutal fight for independence from Great Britain in the 1950s. His is a compelling, strange world: Thiong'o is the fifth child of his father's third wife, and the cast of characters around him is a diverse and mesmerizing bunch. The problem is Thiong'o sometimes breaks the cardinal rule of show, don't tell. Nor is he always successful at weaving the historical into his own personal narrative. He's best when he shares glimpses from his everyday life. Uneven but still an interesting glimpse of life in long-ago Kenya. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/09.]-Tania Barnes, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc. Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc. ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

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