Minutes of Glory

And Other Stories

A dazzling short story collection from the person Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “one of the greatest writers of our time”

“It’s hard to think of another living writer today . . . who speaks so inspiringly and convincingly about the value of literature. No serious reader will want to miss this riveting story.” —The Washington Post on Birth of a Dream Weaver

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, although renowned for his novels, memoirs, and plays, honed his craft as a short story writer. From “The Fig Tree” (“Mugumo” in this collection), written in 1960, his first year as an undergraduate at Makerere University College in Uganda, to the playful “The Ghost of Michael Jackson,” written as a professor at the University of California, Irvine, these collected stories reveal a master of the short form.

Covering the period of British colonial rule and resistance in Kenya to the bittersweet experience of independence—and including two stories that have never before been published in the United States— Ngũgĩ’s collection features women fighting for their space in a patriarchal society; big men in their Bentleys who have inherited power from the British; and rebels who still embody the fighting spirit of the downtrodden. One of Ngũgĩ’s most beloved stories, “Minutes of Glory,” tells of Beatrice, a sad but ambitious waitress who fantasizes about being feted and lauded over by the middle-class clientele in the city’s beer halls. Her dream leads her on a witty and heartbreaking adventure.

Published for the first time in America, Minutes of Glory and Other Stories is a major literary event that celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa’s best-loved writers.

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News and Reviews

World Literature Today

“With Minutes of Glory and Other Stories, Ngũgĩ assembles the quintessential collection of short stories spanning the length of his literary career.”

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Charlotte McDonald-Gibson

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Charlotte McDonald-Gibson have each garnered major accolades for their respective new books, 

Books by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Birth of a Dream Weaver
A Writer’s Awakening

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

The Perfect Nine
The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Wrestling with the Devil
A Prison Memoir

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Goodreads Reviews