Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, novelist and theorist of post-colonial literature, is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, USA. He was born in Kenya, in 1938 into a large peasant family. He was educated at Kamandura, Manguu and Kinyogori primary schools; Alliance High School, all in Kenya; Makerere University College (then a campus of London University), Kampala, Uganda; and the University of Leeds, Britain.

In his latest book, Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening, Ngũgĩ recounts the four years he spent in Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he found his voice as a playwright, journalist, and novelist.