Authors: Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o
A Grain of Wheat (2 page)
Ng
g
’s numerous honors include the East African Novel Prize; Unesco First Prize; the Lotus Prize for Literature; the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence, Political Conscience and Integrity; the Zora Neal Hurston—Paul Robeson Award for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement; the Fonlon-Nichols Prize for Artistic Excellence and Human Rights; the Distinguished Africanist Award; the Gwendolyn Brooks Center Contributors Award for significant contribution to the black literary arts; and the Nonino International Literary Prize for the Italian translation of his book
Moving the Center
. Ngghas given many distinguished lectures including the 1984 Robb Lectures at Auckland University, New Zealand, and the 1996 Clarendon Lectures in English at Oxford University. He received the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Cabinet for “his uncompromising efforts to assert the values implicit in the mulitcultural approach embracing the experience and aspirations of all the world’s minorities.” He has taught in many universities including Nairobi, Northwestern, and Yale. He was named New York University’s Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Languages and Professor of Comparative Literature and Performance Studies. In 2003 Nggwas elected as an honorary member in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Currently he is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the International Center for Writing and Translation in the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine.
ABDULRAZAK GURNAH
was born in 1948 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. He is the author of the highly acclaimed novels
Memory of Departure, Pilgrim’s Way, Dottie, Paradise
(shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize),
Admiring Silence, By the Sea, Desertion
, and
The Last Gift
. He teaches English literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England.
G
WA THIONG’OA Grain of Wheat
Introduction by
ABDULRAZAK GURNAH
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First published by William Heinemann Ltd. 1967
Revised edition published by William Heinemann Ltd. 1986
Published with a new introduction in Penguin Books (UK) 2002
Published in Penguin Books (USA) 2012
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © Nggwa Thiong’o, 1967, 1986
Introduction copyright © Abdulrazak Gurnah, 2002
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-101-58485-9
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