Listen free for 30 days

Preview

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Perfect Nine

Written by: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Narrated by: Benjamin A. Onyango
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $13.00

Buy Now for $13.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

Longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize

A dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says “tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent”.

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.

In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughters - called “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.

Ngũgĩ's 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.”

©2020, 2018 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What the critics say

"Onyango uses his rich bass voice to lend a realistic atmosphere to this fantastical tale, which is both contemporary and ancient." --AudioFile magazine

“Essential reading and especially vital for our times.... Emphasizing fundamental cycles of birth, life, love, and death, this tale is centered on the Gĩkũyũ but connected to all of us and our humanity, a story to be told and retold, as it has been in various forms, for generations.” --Booklist (starred review)

“[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 Gĩkũyũ, Kenya's largest tribe.... Thiong'o's fans will appreciate this.” --Publishers Weekly

What listeners say about The Perfect Nine

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Philosophy of beginning and ending

Profound mythology, wonderfully written and made very accessible in all its multilayered intricacies .
It is very well performed by the narator.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!