A.C. appeared crazed, and Nyawlra thought that he feigned that to be able to say the things he was saying without interference.
It began to rain: people clapped, some saying that maybe the rain would wash away some of the filth on the streets of Eldares.
It was then that A.G.’s eyes met those of Nyawlra and Kamltl. He stopped singing, frowned, and shook his head as if he thought his mind was deceiving him. He resumed his ballad of the famous Wizard of the Crow, who could change himself into anything.
“It’s him,” Nyawlra whispered as they walked away.
“Who?”
“The man who wrestled the gun from Kaniuru.”
“A.G., who once chased us from the gates of Paradise?”
“And also snatched us from the gates of Hell!”
Kamltl and Nyawlra went homeward holding hands, a mixture of teardrops and raindrops running down Nyawlra’s face, the sound of the one-string violin and the man’s voice following them as if the player was telling them that he, too, remembered the night he chased the couple from the gates of Paradise, mistaking them for beggars. To the sound of the violin Nyawlra added her own from her guitar, and the two blended inside her. She let the fusion linger in her mind, knowing that they might never meet him face-to-face to say, “Thank you, A.G… Thank you for the gift of life.”
NGATHO – ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my editor, Erroll McDonald, for his tremendous input into this translation; my literary agent, Gloria Loomis, for her faith and encouragement; and my assistant, Barbara Caldwell, for proofreading and editing; Njenga and Njeri Glkang’a, Gatuawa Mbugwa, Cege Glthiora and Wambui Glthiora, for detailed comments on the early drafts; Elizabeth Alexander for the maps of Chennai and Susan Prethroe for the safekeeping of earlier drafts; my ICWT colleagues Colette Atkinson and Chris Aschan for providing a creative work environment; the commemorative circle for the late Dr. Judy Wambu that met every Thanksgiving at Wambu’s in Riverside Drive, New York, to whom I read portions of the novel; my brothers and sisters, Wallace Mwangi, Charity Wanjiku, Wambui Njinju, Njoki, Wanjiru Gitakaya; the Limahouse crowd (residents and members of the Kenya Council for Cultural Revival); my comrades in the struggle in Kenya, Africa, and the world (Kamoji Wachira and Wanjiru Kihoro, you deserve more recognition) for their inspiring presence. Special thanks to John la Rose and Sarah White for their active role in the Kenyan struggle. And always in my heart, my children, Thiong’o Senior, Klmunya, Nducu, Mukoma, Wanjiku, Njoki, Bjorn, Mumbi, and Thiong’o K, niece Ngina and my grandson, Ngugl.
Thank you Jancita Wabera Rebo for giving Thiong’o and Mumbi a home environment to learn Glkuyu, and Henry and Rosalind Chakava and your children Sharon, Laura, and Yolanda, for giving us a home when we most needed it. Thanks to Pat Hilden, Tim Reiss, Sonia Sanchez, Susie Tharu, Peter and Mary Nazareth, Bhahadur and Yasmine Tejani, Manthia Diawara, Kassahun Checole, Kofi
Anyidoho, Haunani-Kay Trask, Gayatri Spivak, Meena Alexander, Susan Wheeler, Eva Lanno, and Ngugl wa Mlril for always being there. There are many more of you not mentioned here by name, but your spirit is part of this narrative.
But I simply have to mention my compatriots in the London-based Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya (1982-1987), which organized a worldwide campaign against the Moi dictatorship in Kenya and for democracy. They allied with other London-based groups struggling against the Marcos dictatorship in the Phillipines, the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and the apartheid dictatorship in South Africa. Thank you Abdulatif Abdalla, Yusuf Hassan, Shiraz Durrani, Wanjiru and Wanylri Klhoro, Nish Muthoni, and Wangui wa Goro. The images of dictatorship in this narrative date back to that period of our struggle.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Ngugi wa Thiong’o has taught at Amherst College, Yale University, and New York University. He is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, and is director of the university’s International Center for Writing and Translation. His books include Petals of Blood, for which he was imprisoned by the Kenyan government in 1977. He lives in Irvine, California.
