In the House of the Interpreter: Book summary and reviews of In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

In the House of the Interpreter Summary

Ngugi wa Thiong'o is a writer who has lived through extraordinary times. In the House of the Interpreter tells the story of his schooldays in Kenya against the backdrop of the intensification of the struggle for independence.

During the early fifties, Kenya was a country in turmoil. While Ngugi enjoys scouting trips, chess tournaments and reading about Biggles at the prestigious Alliance School near Nairobi, things are changing at home. He arrives back for his first visit since starting school to find his house razed to the ground and the entire village moved up the road closer to a guard checkpoint.

Later, his brother, Good Wallace, who fights for the rebels, is captured by the British and taken to a concentration camp. Finally, Ngugi himself comes into conflict with the forces of colonialism when he is victimized by a police officer on a bus journey and thrown in prison for six days. This fascinating memoir charts the development of a significant voice in international literature, as well as standing as a record of the struggles of a nation to free itself.

In the House of the Interpreter Reviews

"Alternately youthfully innocent and politically savvy, this is a first-rate telling of that African revolutionary elite who determined the future of their continent." - Publishers Weekly

Kenyan writer and professor wa Thiong'o (English and Comparative Literature/Univ. of California, Irvine) offers a second harrowing volume of memoir, a sequel to his Dreams in a Time of War (2010)...An inspiring story of a young man determined to excel and escape." - Kirkus

"The personal detail dramatizes the farce of the colonial land grab and of Christianity as liberation of the natives." - Booklist

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Ngugi Wa Thiong'o Author Biography

Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born in the Kiambu district of Kenya in 1938, into a large peasant family; he is the fifth child of the third of his father's four wives and is of Kĩkũyũ descent.  He was baptized James Ngugi, and while at mission school became a devout Christian. His family was caught up in the Mau Mau rebellion (an insurgency by Kenyan freedom fighters against the British colonial administration, 1952 to 1960); he lost his stepbrother, and his mother was tortured. 

He burst onto the literary scene in East Africa with the performance of his first major play, The Black Hermit, at the National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda, in 1962, while he was still at university. The following year Kenya gained its independence from...

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