Abstract:
Ngugi wa Thiong'o's novel, A Grain of Wheat, published in English in 1967, revolves around the
lives, histories, and meditations of several fictional Gikuyu characters as they encounter the
historical realities of Kenya on the eve of independence. I argue that historians and scholars
should encounter Ngugi's early novels, particularly A Grain of Wheat, as historical meditations
rather than literary works or historical sources. Ngugi's novel A Grain of Wheat, is circular and
tangled as it dwells on trauma to realize new truths at a time when Kenyans were reflecting on
and working through their recent violent past. As a historical meditation, this work transcends
the standard historical rupture or continuity theses and provides a new, complex, framework for
the reader to imagine events and characters that echo Kenyans' lived experiences. As a result, A
Grain of Wheat invites a global audience into the Gikuyu historical conversation and proposes
potential futures of peace for Kenyans.
