Birth of a dream weaver : a writer's awakening

`Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time.' - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the GuardianAs a young student, internationally renowned author Ngugi wa Thiong'o found his voice as a playwright, journalist and novelist, writing his first, pivotal works just as the countries of East Africa were in the final throes of their independence struggles. For Ngugi, an ambitious student leaving Kenya for the first time, the prestigious Makerere University embodies all the potential and excitement of the early 1960s.

Campus is a haven of opportunity for the brightest African students, a meeting place for great thinkers and writers from all over the world, and its alumni, including Milton Obote and Julius Nyerere, are filling Africa's emerging political and cultural positions.

Despite the challenges he faces as a young black man in a British colony, it is here that Ngugi begins to write, weaving stories from the fibres of memory, history and a shockingly turbulent present. Birth of a Dream Weaver is a moving and thought-provoking memoir of the birth of one of the most important writers today, and the death of one of the most violent periods in global history.