Ngugi Wa Thiong'o’s new memoir illuminates his sympathy for the oppressed

Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s memoir, Dreams in a Time of War, illuminates the source of the sympathy for the weak and vulnerable that has come to characterise his literary work and political views.

The Dickensian penury described in the opening in which sixteen-year-old Ngugi has to run six miles to school after only having a bowl of porridge for breakfast and later have nothing to eat for lunch, sets the scene.

A childhood scarred by torturous colonial times, fear and frailties characterises Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s upbringing in central Kenya.

In the first installment of, Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir, the poverty, love of books, the art of storytelling, politics and violence that light up his early life mark the sparks that ignite his sympathy for the oppressed.

The events and individuals he presents in the memoir echo characters from his early books, notably, Weep Not, Child, The River Between, and A Grain of Wheat.

Born in 1938 in the shadow of the Second World War and growing up in 1950s colonial Kenya, the repression caused by the state of Emergency and being forced to live in what Ngugi calls ‘concentration villages’, provides extremely difficult times. Mistrust threatens the cohesion of Ngugi’s family as brothers align themselves on the opposing sides of the struggle.

The childhood portrayed in the memoir is not all gloom and doom. There are fond memories of those who made huge sacrifices (especially his mother) so that Ngugi would live to tell his story and happy ones too of fireside stories in his father’s house that brought out the storyteller in Ngugi.

In the video below, Ngugi, at an interview with Granta, discusses the memoir and its illuminations on the author.

So, how significant do you think a painful childhood is in shaping a writer’s literary work?