Bookatlas
1967Postcolonial Literatures
Cover of A Grain of Wheat

A Grain of Wheat

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o · b. 1938 · Kenya

Why it matters

Four days before Kenya's independence, a village untangles who betrayed whom during the Emergency. Ngũgĩ's masterpiece of collective narration: liberation's price paid in secrets, not slogans.

At a glance

colonial & postcolonialpolitical novelmodernist
Difficulty 6/10slow pace280 pages

Shifting timeframes and multiple perspectives require piecing together a hidden betrayal.

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