The Nobel Prize-nominated Kenyan writer's powerful first novel
Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their futures: Njoroge is to attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. But this is Kenya, and the times are against them: In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up.
The first East African novel published in English, Weep Not, Child explores the effects of the infamous Mau Mau uprising on the lives of ordinary men and women, and on one family in particular.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and essayist from Kenya whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in Irvine, California, where he is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.
Ben Okri won the Booker Prize in 1991 for his novel The Famished Road. He was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and lives in London.