This is the official web site of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, novelist and theorist of post-colonial literature and Distinguished Professor of the Departments of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine.

Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir

“There is a startling similarity between [Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father] and . . . Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s eye-opening memoir, Dreams in a Time of War,” says Marie Arana in The Washington Post. “It is admirably free of cant or sentimentality, and yet it is enough to make you weep.” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s evocative and affecting memoir of his childhood in Kenya is now on sale from Pantheon Books.

Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance was published by Basic Books in 2009. Acclaimed novelist and critic Ngugi wa Thiong'o traces the arc of Africa's fragmentation and restoration amidst the global history of colonialism and modernity. Seeking a revitalization of Africa, Ngugi aggues that a renaissance of African languages is a necessary step in the restoration of African wholeness.

Wizard of the Crow, a sweeping satire laced with magical realism, is described by Ngugi as a “global epic from Africa.” The author’s English translation of the novel was released by Pantheon in August 2006.

~ 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Shortlist
~LitBog Co-op February 2007
~Review Salon.com, 11/14/06
~Podcast - Bumbershoot 9/3/06
~ Podcast - Edinburgh 8/14/06
~ Press Release
~Pantheon Books
~Amazon.com
~Reviews