A review by seeceeread
A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

We only hit back. You are struck on the left cheek. You turn the right cheek. One, two, three – sixty years. Then suddenly, it is always sudden, you say: I am not turning the other cheek anymore. Your back to the wall, you strike back.

A village's men trickle away into the forest, committed Mau Mau fighters. After being captured and sent to detention camps, they slip back. Corralled by colonialist government, the community thrives on stories of unbroken oaths, defiant silence, and courageous acts for others. Few fully embody the towering collective values, and the tension between their aspirations and actual choices are difficult to resolve. They pedestal a martyr and a stuttering returned fighter who they assume are blameless. When that faith is threatened, they excise the wound and begin imagining anew. 

Ngũgĩ's themes captivate more than the novel's basics, including character, setting, and plot. The tale jumps around in narrative style, timeline, perspective, and focus ... without solid transitions or cues. Without Gurnah's introduction, I would have been even more lost 🫠

At the same time, he carefully dramatizes the day-to-day of revolution by complicating heroes, elevating women, and acknowledging class clashes. The Mau Mau and British colonialists are peripheral as he explores lives shifted by their efforts.