This document summarizes Ngugi wa Thiong'o's novel "A Grain of Wheat". The novel focuses on the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s as an anti-colonial struggle. It depicts the physical, psychological, and political impact of the revolt on a small village. The narrative explores the meaning of "Uhuru" or freedom for both the new Kenyan bourgeoisie and the Gikuyu peasants. It also compares the novel to Raja Rao's "Kanthapura" in depicting post-colonial struggles against British rule through Gandhian movements in India.

2. Topic: “Anti-colonial Struggle in A Grain of wheat”
Roll no: 21
Sem: 4
Year: 2016-2018
Enrolment no: 2069108420170012
Email Id: rinkaljani1807@gmail.com
Paper no-14 The African literature
Submitted to:
Smt. S.B Gardi
Department of English
Professor: Dr. Dillip Barad
Maharaja Krishna Kumarsinghji Bhavanagar
university
Presented By: Rinkal Jani

3. Introduction About the Author
• Ngugi wa Thiong’o, original name James
Thiong’o Ngugi, (born January 5, 1938,
Limuru, Kenya), East Africa’s leading
novelist,
• Ngugi is widely regarded as one of the
most significant writer of East Africa.
• His family was caught up in the Mau Mau
war.
• A Grain of Wheat (1967), generally held to
be artistically more mature, focuses on
the many social, moral, and racial issues of
the struggle for independence and its
aftermath

4. Introduction about the Novel
.
• The action of the novel focuses on the hero’s memory
of the
incidents of the ‘Mau Mau revolt, the movement
began in
1946 Mau Mau rebellion an anti – colonial movement
which
historians says revolt an independence for the African
nation.
• The novel stats into a small village and it give us detail
about
on small village people. The novel can be summarized
as a
the physical, psychological and political impact of the
revolt
“Collective act of recalling and reflecting on the past”
that is a narration of nation.
The novel has Marxist and Fanonian militant attitude

5. Anti colonial struggle in “A Grain
of wheat”
• Ant colonialism is a political straggle of colonized peoples
against the specific ideology and practice of colonialism.
Anti colonialism signifies the point at which the various
forms of oppositions become articulated as a resistance to
the operations o colonialism in political, economical and
cultural institutions.
The novel is set in Thabai, an imaginary gĩkũyũ village of
Kenya’s
White Highlands, in the days preceding and following 12
December 1963, the day Kenya got its Independence
• Here, the actions of the novel is focuses on the
protagonists remembrance of the events of the ‘ Mau
Mau’ revolt which Ngugi sees as the only historical
moment which allows “the space to imagine the birth of a
new Kenya.
• The author choose Christianity as a knife to tear
apart the society.

6. What is Mau Mau ?
• “Gang of freedom fighters called
Mau Mau “
• The Mau Mau Uprising, also
known as the Mau Mau Revolt,
Mau Mau Rebellion, or Kenya
Emergency, was a military
conflict that took place in British
Kenya between 1952 and 1960.
• It involved Kikuyu dominated
groups summarily called Mau
Mau, the white settlers including
women and children and
elements of the British Army.
• The former ‘Mau Mau’ guerilla General R. states in
his
Independence speech “We get Uhuru today. But what’s
the
meaning of ‘Uhuru’ ? It is contained in the name of our
Movement: Land and Freedom

7. The Impact of Rebellion amongst the
people and society
Kenyan independence is textured by
post-independence
Disappointment
The novel gives us detail about the
physical, psychological and political
impact of the revolt on small village
people.

8. What is Uhuru?
• Swahili word Uhuru means freedom.
• In the novel the Uhuru is an open political and social question.
• • the new Kenyan bourgeoisie sees it indeed as the possibility to
• replace the colonizer without changing the existing social, political
• and economical structure.
• Whereas for Gikuyu peasants Uhuru means a profound break with
the colonial past, a rebirth which has to bring about the restitution
of the white settlers who wants to rule over the others.
• Uhuru is a struggle for the freedom and to get individuals own
existence and identity.
The narrative is divided between the
new national bourgeoisie and the
peasants. And in this way we will say
that the novel is an anti-colonial
struggle of national epic.

9. Kanthapura and A grain of wheat
• Kanthapura by Raja Rao as Post
colonial novel
• Struggle against Britishers
implanted rules
• Gandhian freedom movement
• Struggle for Indian freedom
fight movement
• Mugo as a Moorthy

10. Anti-colonial struggle in Movies
In Indian context if we see