by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Weep Not, Child, the first novel published in English by a black writer from East Africa, launched the career of the most famous of Kenyan novelists. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 into the Gikuyu (also known as the Kikuyu) people of Kenya’s central highlands. His childhood coincided with Kenya’s struggle for independence through the actions of Jomo Kenyatta’s Kenya African Union (KAU) and the violent Mau Mau Rebellion. After independence in 1963 Ngugi emerged as an influential writer and intellectual. Serving as chairman of the English Department at the University of Nairobi in the late 1960s, he successfully agitated for a curriculum focused on African literature. In the late 1970s the author who had led Kenyans in writing in English returned to his native tongue. In 1977 his Gikuyu play Ngaahika ndeenda (I Will Marry When...