River Between

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938–2025) was an award-winning novelist, playwright, and essayist from Kenya whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. In addition to The River Between, his novels Devil on the Cross, A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood, and Weep Not, Child are available from Penguin Classics.Uzodinma Iweala (introduction) is the author of the award-winning novel Beasts of No Nation and is one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and New York City.

“One of the greatest writers of our time.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Guardian“His novels . . . have been deservedly canonized by the iconic [Penguin Classics] series.” —The Wall Street Journal“Beautifully compact . . . It takes its reader on a journey out of the colonial matrix and into the world of the real, showing us life reclaimed in all its complexity from the simplifying template of colonialism. . . . It has an undeniable power.” —Uzodinma Iweala, from the Introduction“It has the rare qualities of restraint, intelligence and sensitivity.” —The Times Literary Supplement“A sensitive novel about the Gikuyu in the melting pot that sometimes touches the grandeur of tap-root simplicity.” —The Guardian