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.

Ngugi wa Thiongois one of the leading writers and scholars at work in the world today. His books include the novelsPetals of Blood, for which he was imprisoned by the Kenyan government in 1977,A Grain of WheatandWizard of the Crow;the memoirs,Dreams in a Time of War,In the House of the InterpreterandBirth of a Dream Weaver;and the essays,Decolonizing the Mind,Something Torn and NewandGlobalectics.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.

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