Review of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o's The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi
Annachiara Raia wrote a review of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o's The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi on Africa Book Link.
After decades of producing fiction, plays, memoirs, and essays, earning thirteen honorary doctorates and a UCI Medal, distinguished professor of English and comparative literature and literary and social activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o returns to the printed page to bring us the epic of his own people, and he does so for his first time in a fully-fledged poetic prose verse publication, she writes.
'Ngũgĩ has gracefully recast this myth in poetic prose verse for the first time, by creating something completely new.'
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi was published by The New Press in 2020, and originally as Kenda Mũiyũru: Rũgano rwa Gĩkũyũ na Mũmbi by East African Educational Publishers in 2018.
Read the full review. This article appeared on Africa Book Link, Spring 2021.
The Perfect Nine is also available in the library of the African Studies Centre.
About the author(s) / editor(s)
Annachiara Raia is a University Lecturer in the LUCAS department of the Faculty of Humanities and researcher at the African Studies Centre Leiden.
Posted on 10 June 2021, last modified on 15 July 2021