Dreams in a war era

Author's Name: Ngugi wa Thiong'o

In his childhood memoir, "Dreams in a Time of War," Ngugi wa Thiong'o gives us a comprehensive glimpse into his childhood, spent among many brothers and a father with four wives who enriched his imagination with stories, tales, and situations. After a life of cooperation and understanding, his father's cattle, the mainstay of his business, were destroyed, and he took on a violent and difficult personality, forcing Thiong'o's mother to flee to her father's house. Thiong'o and his brother were subsequently expelled from the home. This occurred at a time when the Kenyan people were resisting the British colonialists, who did not hesitate to use every weapon, especially education, to destroy the Kenyan people's pride in their culture and their resistance to it, to the point of declaring a state of emergency in the country from 1952 to 1959 to achieve this goal.
We learn with Thiong'o the value of knowledge, which colonialism withheld from the Kenyan people. He tells us about the emergence of formal education and independent, rebellious schools in Kenya. His dream, which he promised his mother he would spare no effort to achieve, was to learn. But how can a child cling to his dream amidst the shadows of World War II and his family crises? This childhood memoir serves as Thiong'o's testimony in defense of his right to dream, at least, despite all the difficulties, and of his mother's significant role in his life, which has led him to become one of Africa's greatest writers worldwide.