Born in 1938 in rural Kenya, Wa Thiong'o grew up in the shadow of World War II, amid the terrible bloodshed of the war between the Mau Mau and the British. His memoir of a Kenyan childhood filled with dreams in the worst of times bears witness to the social and political changes of life under colonialism and war. Wa Thiong'o grew up with four mothers and a father, and in the evening they would go to any mother's house to hear stories – the stories the children were told only existed in the evening and disappeared during the day . The part that Wa Thiong'o reads describes how his biological mother, by sending him to school, allowed him to read stories at all times.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (born 1938) is a Kenyan writer. He grew up during the colonial period in Kenya and his dream of a free Africa shaped his work, written in English and Kikuyu. In 1977, he launched a new form of theater "Ngaahika Ndeenda", which sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he saw as "the general bourgeois education system". Despite his success, the Kenyan authoritarian regime shut him down and he was subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, he was however released and left for the United States, where he still resides. His works, which include novels, plays, short stories and essays, include “Don't Cry, Child” (1964), “Petals of Blood” (1977), “The Magician of the Raven” (2006) , “Dreams in the Age of War” (2010) and “In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir” (2015). Wa Thiong'o also taught at Yale University, New York University, and the University of California, Irvine. Additionally, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Kikuyu language journal Mũtĩiri.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o read her childhood memoir "Dreams in a Time of War" (2010) at the Louisiana Literature Festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, in August 2015.
Camera: Mathias Nyholm and Jakob Solbakken
Produced and edited by: Kasper Bech Dyg
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2018
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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