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In the Name of the Mother Reflections...
Renowned worldwide, as novelist and dramatist, Ngugi wa Thiongo's contributions to the body of critical writing on African literature, politics and society have been highly significant. His best known critical work is Decolonizing the Mind, which since publication in 1986 has profoundly influenced other writers, critics, scholars and students.
These latest essays reflect Ngugi's continuing interests and enthusiasms. His choice of writers is original. He makes us look again at their novels to address his lifelong concerns with the ways to independence, the meanings of colonialism and the takeover by neo-colonialism, and the functions of literature in political as well as literary terms.
They will appeal not only to his international band of supporters. They will also introduce his views to young people discovering African and Caribbean literature. Ngugi wa Thiong'o is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.
Ngugi is renowned for his essays, including the seminal Decolonizing the Mind (James Currey 1986); his plays, which led to his detention in Kenya; his novels - the most recent works being The Wizard of the Crow (2007, translated into English from Gikuyu) and his memoirs Dreams in a Time of War and In the House of the Interpreter.
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
Set in the shadow of Kenya's independence from Great Britain, Dance of the Jakaranda reimagines the special circumstances that brought black, brown and white men together to lay the railroad that heralded the birth of the nation.
The novel traces the lives and loves of three men--preacher Richard Turnbull, the colonial administrator Ian McDonald, and Indian technician Babu Salim--whose lives intersect when they are implicated in the controversial birth of a child. Years later, when Babu's grandson Rajan--who ekes out a living by singing Babu's epic tales of the railway's construction--accidentally kisses a mysterious stranger in a dark nightclub, the encounter provides the spark to illuminate the three men's shared, murky past.
With its riveting multiracial, multicultural cast and diverse literary allusions, Dance of the Jakaranda could well be a story of globalization. Yet the novel is firmly anchored in the African oral storytelling tradition, its language a dreamy, exalted, and earthy mix that creates new thresholds of identity, providing a fresh metaphor for race in contemporary Africa.
Son of Fate by John Kiriamiti
This novel is by the author of the celebrated My Life in Crime and is his first. The life of the 'Son of Fate' is a grim struggle for survival, after his release from prison.
He tries his luck at farming, and odd jobs in the city, but everything fails, and he finds himself on the wrong side of the law again. But a glimmer of hope comes when he rescues a tycoon.
Who Will Catch Us As We Fall by Iman ...
Haunted by a past that has kept her from Nairobi for over three years, Leena returns home to discover her family unchanged: her father is still a staunch patriot dreaming of a better country; her mother is still unwilling or unable to let go of the past; and her brother spends his days provoking the establishment as a political activist.
When Leena meets a local Kikuyu artist whose past is linked to her own, the two begin a secret affair—one that forces Leena to again question her place in a country she once called home.
Interlinked with Leena’s story is that of Jeffery: a corrupt policeman burdened with his own angers and regrets, and whose questionable actions have unexpected and catastrophic consequences for those closest to him. Who Will Catch Us as We Fall is an epic look at the politics and people of Kenya.
The Girl Was Mine by David Karanja
In The Girl Was Mine, Douglas Kamau struggles to keep Nancy Wanja his girlfriend, but the prevailing forces almost cost him his life.
Whether or not Douglas emerges victorious is the ultimate question.
The world favors rich tycoons like Tim Matthews and makes them confident that they can have anything they want, even the love of an unwilling young woman. Nancy's father Waihenya will do anything for money and position.
One Life too Many by Yusuf Dawood
Brief Summary
Sydney Walker, young and carefree, came to Kenya in search of adventure, fell in love with the country and decided to make it his home.
This is the story of the joys and sorrows of a man who worked hard and loved even harder. A magnificent account of expatriate life, set in the awe- inspiring beauty of Kenya, it confirms Yusuf K. Dawood as one of the greatest storytellers of our time.
My Life in Prison by John Kiriamiti
Brief summary
This is a thriller novel set in Kenya, Nairobi. It rolls through a forest of crime of a gang led by John Kiriamiti alias Jack Zollo.
Their main set is robbery, with violence. Jack the wanted criminal is in love with an innocent girl, Milly- who lives in a fool’s paradise not knowing exactly what her handsome man does for a living.
Jack must harbor secrets, nurture his love and yet evade the deadly police at the same time. Will he continue being lucky?
Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
From a breathtaking new voice, a novel about a splintered family in Kenya—a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice.
Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan dry lands, seeking some comfort and peace.
But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge.
In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.
Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.
Birth of a Dream Weaver by Ngugi wa T...
Brief Summary
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 in Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda—threshold years where he found his voice as a playwright, journalist, and novelist, just as Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and other countries were in the final throes of their independence struggles.
James Ngugi, as he was known then, is haunted by the emergency period of the previous decade in Kenya, when his friends and relatives were killed during the Mau Mau Rebellion. He is also haunted by the experience of his childhood in a polygamous family and the brave break his mother made from his father’s home.
Accompanied by these ghosts, 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 both the birth of one of the most important living writers—lauded for his "epic imagination” (Los Angeles Times)—and the death of one of the most violent episodes in global history.
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiongo
Brief Summary
From the exiled Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and literary critic--a magisterial comic novel that is certain to take its place as a landmark of postcolonial African literature. In exile now for more than twenty years, Ngugi wa Thiongo has become one of the most widely read African writers of our time, the power and scope of his work garnering him international attention and praise.
His aim in Wizard of the Crow is, in his own words, nothing less than "to sum up Africa of the twentieth century in the context of two thousand years of world history.” Commencing in "our times” and set in the "Free Republic of Aburiria,” the novel dramatizes with corrosive humor and keenness of observation a battle for control of the souls of the Aburirian people. Among the contenders: His High Mighty Excellency; the eponymous Wizard, an avatar of folklore and wisdom; the corrupt Christian Ministry; and the nefarious Global Bank.
Fashioning the stories of the powerful and the ordinary into a dazzling mosaic, Wizard of the Crow reveals humanity in all its endlessly surprising complexity. Informed by richly enigmatic traditional African storytelling, Wizard of the Crow is a masterpiece, the crowning achievement in Ngugl wa Thiongo’s career thus far.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love.
Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America.
But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.
The Last Word by Yusuf Dawood
The Last Word by Yusuf Dawood concludes the quartet of the Surgeon's Diary - in book format. The other three are Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Off my Chest, and Behind the Mask.
The beautifully executed stories in the Last Word are adorned with occurrences from the author's extensive travels and medical experiences, some heart-rending and others with exultant endings. Dawood's stories are lit with humor and wit that make the myriad medical challenges seem surmountable.
The stories though appearing in the Surgeon's Diary are fresh and authentic. Just like in the other three titles that form the quartet, the author has once again used his scalpel and pen with prowess to bring real surgical drama to our doorstep. Dawood, a celebrated surgeon and formidable author, has authored The Price of Living, One Life too Many, Water Under the Bridge, among others. The Last Word is his eleventh title.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Yusuf K. Dawood
