Flat lay of 12 poetry books against a bright red background

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Reading lists

12 poetry collections to help you understand the world

A host of short story collections photographed against a red background

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12 short story collections to sink into

Fighters & Martyrs

Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of the leading writers and scholars at work in the world today. His books include the novels Petals of Blood, for which he was imprisoned by the Kenyan government in 1977, A Grain of Wheat and Wizard of the Crow; the memoirs, Dreams in a Time of War, In the House of the Interpreter and Birth of a Dream Weaver; and the essays, Decolonizing the Mind, Something Torn and New and Globalectics. Recipient of many honours, among them ten honorary doctorates, he is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's stories of rebellion and sacrifice, where ordinary lives burn with extraordinary courage 
 
In these tales of rebellion and sacrifice, ordinary lives burn with extraordinary courage. From fighters taking up arms against colonial rule to martyrs confronting impossible choices, these stories of struggle and resilience explore the cost of freedom and the endurance of the human spirit. 
 
Includes the stories: The Village Priest, The Black Bird, The Martyr, The Return, A Meeting in the Dark and Goodbye Africa 
 
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi

The Perfect Nine

A dazzling, feminist novel in verse that reimagines the origin story of the Gikuyu people of Kenya, from the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls 'one of the greatest writers of our time'

A vivid, exhilarating tale with a surprisingly modern philosophy that emphasises the importance of tolerance, feminism and respect for the environment

As pacy and addictive as it is measured. Thick with allegory and adventure...this is a beautifully told epic about the fundamentals of humanity

A beautiful work that not only refuses distinctions between "high art" and traditional storytelling, but supplies that all-too rare human necessity: the sense that life has meaning

The Perfect Nine uses a deceptively simple language that lays bare deep truths.

In this sinuous retelling by the great Kenyan writer, the founding myth of the Gikuyu people emerges as an epic poem rivalling the Iliad in body count and surpassing it in whimsy.

Unfolding in wry and lyrical verse, The Perfect Nine tells a Homeric odyssey of the creation of the entire Gikuyu people-a creationist myth, an adventure tale, and a family story, wherein the wives do not simply wait at home.

The Perfect Nine is one of the year's great discoveries.

It is the farthest you could possibly get from the grim, wet reality of a lockdown Christmas in London and is exactly what I want to escape with

[The Perfect Nine] departs from the sprawl of his past novels into an engaging if slight lyrical epic. Combining Homeric verse with oral storytelling tropes-choruses, chants, songs-he retells the origin myth of the Gikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe. . . . Thiong'o's fans will appreciate this.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's first venture into epic poetry is a triumph of the form, which resounds with the lyrical heartbeat of the Gikuyu people in Kenya as Ngugi chronicles their mythic history.

A tremendous writer... it's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong’o

In his crowded career and 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

Ngugi masterfully sings us through an origin story written in verse. This book is a magisterial and poetic tale about women's place in a society of Gods. It is also about disability and how expectations shape and determine characters' spiritual anchoring.

[The Perfect Nine's] sophistication comes from the use of the narrative voice, which positions the reader as part of a common humanity

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE.* 'One of the greatest writers of our time' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
 
The Perfect Nine is a glorious epic about the founding of Kenya's Gikuyu people and the ideals of beauty, courage and unity. 
 
Gikuyu and Mumbi settled on the peaceful and bounteous foot of Mount Kenya after fleeing war and hunger. When ninety-nine suitors arrive on their land, seeking to marry their famously beautiful daughters, called The Perfect Nine, the parents ask their daughters to choose for themselves, but to choose wisely. 
 
First the young women must embark on a treacherous quest with the suitors, to find a magical cure for their youngest sister, Warigia, who cannot walk. As they journey up the mountain, the number of suitors diminishes and the sisters put their sharp minds and bold hearts to the test, conquering fear, doubt, hunger and many menacing ogres, as they attempt to return home. But it is perhaps Warigia's unexpected adventure that will be most challenging of all. 
 
Blending folklore, mythology and allegory, Ngugi wa Thiong'o chronicles the adventures of Gikuyu and Mumbi, and how their brave daughters became the matriarchs of the Gikuyu clans, in stunning verse, with all the epic elements of danger, humour and suspense. 
 
'A tremendous writer... it's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong'o' Guardian

Wizard of the Crow

A huge, comic novel... A shimmering, shifting discourse... mythological but also cheerfully disenchanted; political and playful; cartoonish but also epical... the African novel may well have delivered its greatest masterpiece

Truly exciting... the author is a master of farce

An impish and hallucinatory satire on dictatorship

Powerfully funny... Aburiria is recognisable as modern Africa in all its splendour, squalor, economic malaise and venality... it is hard not to be cheerd by the spirit of gentle resistance that is at its core, in defiance of everyday greed

Truthful in its dissection of power, and remarkably free of bitterness... the poisonousness of its targets never infects the author's vision, nor his faith in people's power to resist

It's a book of wonderful purple phases...restless, epic, allusive

Praise on Devil on the Cross: 
'This novel will be regarded as one of the historic staging posts of African Fiction. Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing.

Praise on Petals of Blood 
Ambitious, caustic and impassioned

A mind-blowing political statement, an anguished cry of despair . . .  a bomshell

The definitive African book of the twentieth century.

Moses Isegawa, author of Abyssinian Chronicles and Snakepit

Informed by traditional African storytelling, discover Ngugi wa Thiong'o's masterpiece. 
 
 To honour the Ruler's birthday, the Free Republic of Aburiria set out to build a tower; a modern wonder of the world that will reach the gates of Heaven. But behind this pillar of unity a battle for control of the Aburirian people rages. Among the contenders: the eponymous Wizard, an avatar of folklore and wisdom; the corrupt Christian Ministry; and the nefarious Global Bank. 
 
'Mythological but also cheerfully disenchanted; political and playful; cartoonish but also epical... the African novel may well have delivered its greatest masterpiece' Sunday Herald

Petals of Blood

A compelling novel about the tragedy of corrupting power, set in post-independence Kenya. . . Ngugi writes with passion about every form, shape and colour which power can take

A mind-blowing political statement, an anguished cry of despair… a bombshell

'A compelling novel about the tragedy of corrupting power, set in post-independence Kenya... Ngugi writes with passion about every form, shape and colour which power can take' Sunday Times 
 
 After decades of British rule Kenya has declared its independence, but drought and poor harvests still govern the village of Ilmorog. Undeterred, Munira, Karega, Wanja and Abdulla each move to Ilmorog in search of a more provincial life, only to find themselves suspects in a crime that signals a dark turning of the times. 
 
A classic of modern African literature, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's damning satire of politics and corruption in Kenya would prove the catalyst for his imprisonment by the Kenyan government.

Secret Lives & Other Stories

A tremendous writer... It's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong’o

'One of the greatest writers of our time' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
 
 Ngugi wa Thiong'o is renowned for his political novels and plays, yet he honed his craft as a short story writer. First published in 1975, Secret Lives and Other Stories brings together a range of Ngugi's political short stories. 
 
From tales of the meeting between magic and superstition, to stories about the modernising forces of colonialism, and the pervasive threat of nature, this collection celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa's best-loved writers.

A Prison Memoir

Wrestling with the Devil

An unforgettable chronicle of the year the brilliant novelist and memoirist, long favoured for the Nobel Prize, endured in a Kenyan jail

One of the greatest writers of our time

A tremendous writer... It's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Ngugi is affording us a glimpse into how a prisoner of conscience, by stubbornly reiterating his convictions, keeps faith with the ideals that those in power want him to betray... This thrilling testament to the human spirit had, for me, a fierce resonance... I could not help feeling that his luminous words were meant for those victims and many others being persecuted across the world, a way of urging humanity to never surrender to the demons of fear and silence

One of Kenya's greatest storytellers

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s powerful prison memoir begins half an hour before his release on 12 December 1978. 
 
A year earlier, he recalls, armed police arrived at his home and took him to Kenya’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. There, Ngugi lives in a block alongside other political prisoners, but he refuses to give in to the humiliation. He decides to write a novel in secret, on toilet paper – it is a book that will become his classic, Devil on the Cross. 
 
Wrestling with the Devil is Ngugi’s unforgettable account of the drama and challenges of living under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He captures not only the pain caused by his isolation from his family, but also the spirit of defiance and the imaginative endeavours that allowed him to survive.

A Writer’s Awakening

Birth of a Dream Weaver

In this moving and thought-provoking memoir, the great writer speaks of his emergence during one of Africa's most violent periods

I particularly loved [Birth of A Dream Weaver]… Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time.

The book tracks the blossoming of a politically conscious young writer’s talent in the nurturing environment that was Makerere in its prime. Egged on by fellow students, encouraged by the progressive dean Hugh Dinwiddy and offered tips by a visiting Chinua Achebe, Ngugi finds his creative voice just as a continent is finding its freedom. The convictions he forms will last a lifetime: the quest for African dignity and self-realization, a rejection of Western hegemony, a passionate call for Africans to tell their own story in their own indigenous languages.

Ngugi has written an autobiographical masterpiece... a riveting read in African history and literature

Ngugi wa Thiong’o recalls his upbringing in colonial Kenya... Mr Ngugi’s unstated goal throughout this book is reclamation...of much of the colonial endeavour in east Africa.

‘Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time’ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
 
Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Guardian 
 
When Ngugi wa Thiong’o arrives at the prestigious Makerere University, it embodies all the potential and excitement of the early 1960s. Campus is a haven of opportunity for the brightest African students, a meeting place for thinkers and writers from all over the world, and its alumni are filling Africa’s emerging political and cultural positions. 
 
 Despite the challenges he faces as a young black man in a British colony, it is here that Ngugi begins to find his voice as a playwright, journalist and novelist, writing his first, pivotal works just as the countries of East Africa enter the final stages of their independence struggles.

Devil on the Cross

A legendary work of African literature, Devil on the Cross is one of the cornerstones of Ngugi wa Thiong'o's enduring fame - and at the heart of his perennial contention for the Nobel Prize. An impassioned cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their own local dialects, it has had profound influences on Africa and on African literature. 
 
Written on toilet paper while Ngugi wa Thiong'o was in prison, this novel tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later a corrupt businessman. As Wariinga struggles to survive, she begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country. Climaxing in an unforgettable scene of the 'Devil's Feast', a satirical parable on Western culture and business practices, Devil on the Cross is an essential story of the post-colonial African experience.

Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new 
direction for African writing

Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1938-2025) was born in Limuru, Kenya, and went on to become one of the leading writers and scholars of our times. He authored numerous works of fiction, memoir and essay, including A Grain of Wheat, Devil on the Cross and Decolonizing the Mind. Ngugi was the Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine; he held fourteen honorary doctorates, among other awards, and was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize.

A Memoir

In the House of the Interpreter

A childhood memoir set in Kenya from the International Man Booker nominated author, Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Growing up in Kenya in the 1950s, the future novelist went to an elite school run by a Briton just as the Mau Mau uprising swept his family into the revolt against colonial rule.  This powerful memoir depicts a youth torn between these separate worlds

This is a book about a young boy’s fear, not just of letting his mother down or failing to fulfill his potential, but some of the worst political violence that Africa endured in the colonial period

No writer alive today has more complex experience to draw upon or greater resource to convey it

The only thing more amazing than identifying the themes of your life is using them to create deceptively simple literature about it. Such labor is child’s play for the Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o... [With] echoes of Barack Obama’s own Dreams... [Thiong’o] easily keeps the balance between the whimsical, political, spiritual and personal

Eloquently telegraphs the complicated experience of being simultaneously oppressed and enlightened at the hands of a colonial regime

This is a compelling memoir and an interesting companion to his novels… a fine and fiery book

Ngugi has an admirable lightness of touch even …. This book is also a brave and vivid take on decline of British colonialism – a document of a remarkable writer’s coming-of-age that makes all the more poignant reading knowing ‘the memories of pain’ for him that are yet to come

It's a work of understated and heartfelt prose that relates one man's intimate view of the epic cultural and political shifts that created modern Africa... Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Kenya endures. And it comes alive in the pages of his brilliant and essential memoir

Many incidents in In the House of the Interpreter will remind readers of the great novels of the African American canon, particularly Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man . . . . Considering the scope of Ngugi’s life, when completed his extraordinary memoirs encompassing colonialism, post-colonialism, English racism, African despotism, exile and fame may well belong among the major works of history and literature of our time

Beautifully crafted... A story for all time

During the early fifties, Kenya was a country in turmoil. While Ngugi enjoys scouting trips, chess tournaments and reading about Biggles at the prestigious Alliance School near Nairobi, things are changing at home. He arrives back for his first visit since starting school to find his house razed to the ground and the entire village moved up the road closer to a guard checkpoint. Later, his brother, Good Wallace, who fights for the rebels, is captured by the British and taken to a concentration camp. Finally, Ngugi  himself comes into conflict with the forces of colonialism when he is victimised by a police officer on a bus journey and thrown in prison for six days. This fascinating memoir charts the development of a significant voice in international literature, as well as standing as a record of the struggles of a nation to free itself.

Dreams in a Time of War

A powerful memoir of an extraordinary Kenyan childhood by an widely celebrated international author.

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

Delicate, fresh and scrupulously honest...calm and mature

Moving, honest and informative, this is a book about the influence of stories, storytelling and storytellers. It is a reminder that every generation, however beleaguered, can dream to change the world

The work he offers us here is like nothing that's gone before: it is the chronicle of a child's single-minded pursuit of an education.... The picture of Kenya that he presents is admirably free of cant or sentimentality, and yet it is enough to make you weep

Ngugi has returned to his roots to produce something delicate, fresh and scrupulously honest

The surprise about Dreams in a Time of War is that, for all the provocation of history, and for all its clear-eyed evocation of an agonised time, it is not an angry book ... Ngugi's storyteller's instinct for character and place, for recurring motifs and telling symbols, triumphs over the bleakness of background...this memoir is a tale of triumph

Essential reading for the author's many admirers

Ngugi's storytelling skills never falter as he brings this far-away world vividly to life

Absorbing personal reflections that illuminate not just later careers, but the state of their peoples too.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born the fifth child of his father's third wife, in a family that includes twenty-four children born to four different mothers. He spent his 1930s childhood as the apple of his mother's eye, before attending school to slake what is considered a bizarre thirst for learning. 
 
As he grows up, the wider political and social changes occurring in Kenya begin to impinge on the boy's life in both inspiring and frightening ways. Through the story of his grandparents and parents, and his brothers' involvement in the violent Mau Mau uprising, Ngugi deftly etches a tumultuous era, capturing the landscape, the people and their culture, and the social and political vicissitudes of life under colonialism and war.

A Grain of Wheat

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A masterly story of myth, rebellion, love, friendship and betrayal from one of Africa's great writers, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat includes an introduction by Abdulrazak Gurnah, author of By the Sea, in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
It is 1963 and Kenya is on the verge of Uhuru - Independence Day. The mighty british government has been toppled, and in the lull between the fighting and the new world, colonized and colonizer alike reflect on what they have gained and lost. In the village of Thabai, the men and women who live there have been transformed irrevocably by the uprising. Kihika, legendary rebel leader, was fatally betrayed to the whiteman. Gikonyo's marriage to the beautiful Mumbi was destroyed when he was imprisoned, while her life has been shattered in other ways. And Mugo, brave survivor of the camps and now a village hero, harbours a terrible secret. As events unfold, compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed and loves are tested. 
 
Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o is the author of Weep Not Child (1964), The River Between (1965), and Petals of Blood (1977). Ngugi was chair of the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi from 1972 to 1977. He left Kenya in 1982 and taught at various universities in the United States before he became professor of comparative literature and performance studies at New York University in 1992. 
 
If you enjoyed A Grain of Wheat, you might like Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
'With Ngugi history is a living tissue ... this book adds cubits to his already considerable stature' 
Guardian

Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o is the author of WEEP NOT CHILD  (1964), THE RIVER BETWEEN (1965), and PETALS OF BLOOD (1977). Ngugi was chair of the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi from 1972 to 1977. He left Kenya in 1982 and taught at various universities in the United States before he became professor of comparative literature and performance studies at New York University in 1992.

Originally published in 1967, Ngugi's third novel is his best known and most ambitious work.  A GRAIN OF WHEAT portrays several characters in a village whose intertwined lives are transformed by the 1952-1960 Emergency in Kenya.  As the action follows the village's arrangements for Uhuru (independence) Day, this is a novel of stories within stories, a narrative interwoven with myth as well as allusions to real-life leaders of the nationalist struggle, including Jomo Kenyatta. At the centre of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village's chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret.  As events unfold, compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed and loves are tested.

The River Between

Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o is the author of THE RIVER BETWEEN, A GRAIN OF WHEAT and PETALS OF BLOOD, all available as Modern Classics. Ngugi was chair of the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi from 1972 to 1977. He left Kenya in 1982 and taught at various universities in the United States before he became professor of comparative literature and performance studies at New York University in 1992.

THE RIVER BETWEEN explores life on the Makuyu and Kameno ridges of Kenya in the early days of white settlement.  Faced with an alluring, new religion and 'magical' customs, the Gikuyu people are torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it.  Some fellow Joshua and his fiery brand of Christianity while others proudly pursue tribal independence. In the midst of this disunity stands Waiyaki, a dedicated visionary born to a line of prophets.  He struggles to educate the tribe- a task he sees as the only unifying link between the two factions - but his plans for the future raise issues which will determine both his own and the Gikuyu's survival.

Weep Not, Child

Two small boys stand on a rubbish heap and look into the future. One boy is excited, he is beginning school; the other, his brother, is an apprentice carpenter. Together, they will serve their country – the teacher and the craftsman. 
 
But this is colonial Kenya and times are against them. In the forests, the Mau Mau are waging war against the white government, and the two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, and the rest of their family, need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical man, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge, the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up. 
 
The debut novel from a giant of African literature, Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s powerful story about the tragic effects of colonialism on the lives of ordinary people continues to resonate strongly today.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing

Generations of readers learned about the urgency of decolonizing language and culture from Ngugi wa Thiong'o. It is a great gift to have his incisive thinking on the subject gathered together in this book

Who owns language? In Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas, Ngugi wa Thiong’o presents a series of essays that build on his vast wealth of work on language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. Intricate, nuanced and accessible, it reaffirms the revolutionary power of African languages to fight back against both the psychic and material impacts of colonialism, past and present.With immense relevance to our present moment, Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas is a brilliant distillation of the enduring themes of Ngugi’s work and a vital addition to the library of one of the world’s greatest and most provocative writers.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Praise for Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas

One of the greatest writers of our time

A giant of African writing

One of Africa's greatest writers

One of the greatest writers of our time

A giant of African writing

One of Africa's greatest writers

One of the greatest writers of our time

A giant of African writing

One of Africa's greatest writers

Books by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Series by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Brief Encounters

Articles featuring Ngugi wa Thiong'o

12 poetry collections to help you understand the world

12 short story collections to sink into

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