Ngugi's new childhood memoirs

There's a new book by Ngugi wa Thiong'o out that's relevant to this class:

Dreams in a Time of War is described as A Childhood Memoir, and part of its considerable appeal is the childhood perspective that Ngũgĩ maintains for the most part: realistically, much of the adult (and larger political) world remains distant and not well understood. Nevertheless, political and social upheaval have an effect even on the child's life, and Ngũgĩ's portrait is also an effective one of this era -- 'a time of war' that first saw many locals sent to fight in the colonial power's conflict (World War II) and then an escalating civil conflict that resulted in the Mau Mau uprising. Ngũgĩ's ambit remains a very tightly circumscribed one -- the first time he even just gets on a train is near the end of his account, when he is in his late teens and sets off to a nearby school. This is a memoir of rural Kenyan life, with, for example, the metropolis of Nairobi as distant as any spot on earth and yet it offers a great deal of insight into life in Kenya in the 1940s and 1950s.