The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective - a dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says "tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent". Translated by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their famously beautiful daughters - The Perfect Nine - and the challenges they set for the 99 suitors who seek their hands in marriage. The epic has all the elements of adventure, with suspense, danger, humour and sacrifice.

"Though it bills itself as a novel, that very term is a product of a European sensibility. The subtitle — 'The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi' — is more useful ... a work of myth, rendered in verse; you can hear the voice of the person relaying the story ... Is there a fundamental human desire for story, a way to explain the world around us? The Perfect Nine seems to answer that desire..."  -  Alex Crayon, World Literature Today

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's novels and memoirs have received glowing praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and NPR; he has been a finalist for the Man International Booker Prize and is annually tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his books have sold tens of thousands of copies around the world.