A Grain of Wheat (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Ngugi Wa Thiongo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2010 | Series: Penguin Modern Classics

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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin in Association with Heinemann African (July 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141186992
• ISBN-13: 978-0141186993
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > African > East African

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling story w profound moral msg for all activists, July 16, 2002

By 

vcrs (Madison, WI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Grain of Wheat (African Writers) (Paperback)

I loved this book. The story itself is compelling, detailing both African and European characters' perspectives on Kenyans' struggle for independence from Britain. Just for the story alone, the book is an intriguing page-turner that completely satisfies. But beyond that, it has a powerful and inspirational moral message that I have taken with me and hope never to forget.

Each of the major characters commits an act of betrayal to attain a greater goal, whether it's the British officer who wants to create a happy, harmonious colony and finds himself torturing and murdering in pursuit of this vision, or whether it's the Kenyan rebel who betrays his comrade to save his own life, feeling that he must survive to perform important tasks for his people.

Each one chooses less-than-perfect means to an imagined end. But what we and they learn, is that the "end" never comes, and we are left living day-to-day in the rubble of our "means." The betrayals that crisscross the novel scar all the characters with heavy losses, representative of the losses and betrayals that scarred Kenya as it stood on the threshhold of independence, divided between those who had collaborated with British occupation and those who had rebelled. And yet the final note is one of hope, that somehow reconciliation and transcendence of past injuries can be attempted.

I took to heart two messages: that those of us who struggle for justice in today's world must never betray our own principles in pursuit of some supposed higher good--because we too will be left only with our betrayals and no higher good in sight. And, that even after betrayals and years of conflict, there is still a spark of hope for renewal.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uhuru at last?, December 8, 1999

By 

SUN (Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Grain of Wheat (African Writers) (Paperback)

A brand new perspective upon the emancipation of so-called Third World Country! On the verge of Kenya independence, both colonizers and colonied were bewildered and confused. White colonial agents lost faith on their lifelong commitment, and Kenyans were cast into a precarious future which they had been longed for and at the same time, worried about. National passion became a nostalgia censorship, and those who did not contribute to this "exploit" or those who chose to save his own skin or family and betray his to the movement bore a brand "Cain" on their forehead forever. A vivid description of the struggle between nation and individual.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An even-handed, complex, masterful study of a revolution, June 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Grain of Wheat (African Writers) (Paperback)

A Grain of Wheat is a remarkable book, which manages to intertwine personal tragedies and joys with national ideologies and events quite effortlessly. The novel is partly the story of a nation - of Kenya's (ultlimately successful) struggle to rid itself of British domination - but mainly the book deals with the toll that this long fight has taken on individuals; the impact, both for good and evil, that it has made on individual lives.

Another reviewer mentioned that the book's fluid chronology - which keeps flashing back and forth between present and past - made the book difficult to follow. For me, this style of writing only enhanced the book's strengths - throughout the course of the story you are allowed to see the same events through many different sets of eyes (and it is amazing how different the same thing can look to a British Army officer and a Kenyan freedom fighter.)

To sum up - A Grain of Wheat works very well, both as an exploration of Kenya's painful history, and as a realistic look at the toll that any war will take on the people who fight in, and live through, it. Definitely reccomended!