The Perfect Nine

One of the greatest writers of our time

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A tremendous writer... it's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Guardian

A visionary writer

Financial Times

In his crowded career and eventful life, Ngugi has enacted, for all to see, the paradigmatic trials and quandaries of a contemporary African writer, caught in sometimes implacable political, social, racial and linguistic currents

Daily Telegraph

Unfolding in wry and lyrical verse, The Perfect Nine tells a Homeric odyssey of the creation of the entire Gikuyu people-a creationist myth, an adventure tale, and a family story, wherein the wives do not simply wait at home.

Literary Hub

[The Perfect Nine] departs from the sprawl of his past novels into an engaging if slight lyrical epic. Combining Homeric verse with oral storytelling tropes-choruses, chants, songs-he retells the origin myth of the Gikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe. . . . Thiong'o's fans will appreciate this.

Publishers Weekly

A vivid, exhilarating tale with a surprisingly modern philosophy that emphasises the importance of tolerance, feminism and respect for the environment

Anthony Gardner, Mail on Sunday

The Perfect Nine uses a deceptively simple language that lays bare deep truths.

Financial Times

In this sinuous retelling by the great Kenyan writer, the founding myth of the Gikuyu people emerges as an epic poem rivalling the Iliad in body count and surpassing it in whimsy.

New Yorker

The Perfect Nine is one of the year's great discoveries.

Economist

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's first venture into epic poetry is a triumph of the form, which resounds with the lyrical heartbeat of the Gikuyu people in Kenya as Ngugi chronicles their mythic history.

World Literature Today

A beautiful work that not only refuses distinctions between "high art" and traditional storytelling, but supplies that all-too rare human necessity: the sense that life has meaning

Fiona Sampson, Guardian

It is the farthest you could possibly get from the grim, wet reality of a lockdown Christmas in London and is exactly what I want to escape with

Alicia Lansom, Refinery29

As pacy and addictive as it is measured. Thick with allegory and adventure...this is a beautifully told epic about the fundamentals of humanity

New Statesman

Ngugi masterfully sings us through an origin story written in verse. This book is a magisterial and poetic tale about women's place in a society of Gods. It is also about disability and how expectations shape and determine characters' spiritual anchoring.

2021 International Booker Prize Judges

[The Perfect Nine's] sophistication comes from the use of the narrative voice, which positions the reader as part of a common humanity

Madhu Krishnan, London Review of Books

Ngugi is a giant of African writing

Carey Baraka, Guardian

The Perfect Nine is one of the year's great discoveries

Economist

A beautiful work that not only refuses distinctions between "high art" and traditional storytelling, but supplies that all-too rare human necessity: the sense that life has meaning

Fiona Sampson, Guardian

A rather beautiful, if unusual, read

Emily Beament, TalkTalk

As pacy and addictive as it is measured. Thick with allegory and adventure...this is a beautifully told epic about the fundamentals of humanity

New Statesman

It is the farthest you could possibly get from the grim, wet reality of a lockdown Christmas in London and is exactly what I want to escape with

Alicia Lansom, Refinery29