num_pages: 240
description: A dazzling genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says tackles the absurdities injustices and corruption of a continentNgg wa Thiongos 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.In his first attempt at the epic form Ngg tells the story of the founding of the Gky people of Kenya from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative blending folklore mythology adventure and allegory The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gky founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughterscalled 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 humor and sacrifice.Nggs epic is a quest for the beautiful as an ideal of living as the motive force behind migrations of African peoples. He notes The epic came to me one night as a revelation of ideals of quest courage perseverance unity family; and the sense of the divine in human struggles with nature and nurture.
language: English
title: The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi
publisher: The New Press