Title: The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright
Author: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Original language: Gikuyu
Translation(s): 78 languages
Context: The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright is translated novel by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Numerous explanations have been given about evolution of humans from walking on four limbs to feet. However none of the explanations can be as engrossing as the way offered by the Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the storyteller in the novel.
Synopsis: The fable presents how humans would walk on their arms and legs, a long time ago, just like other creatures with four limbs. It tells about how their seamless coordination and rhythm allowed the other body parts go green with envy and gradually the body parts began plotting against the two pairs.
A remarkable fable has been conjured up by the author of how and reasons why humans started to walk upright. With critical insight, both folklore and myth have been blended into politics and human psyche by the author. This is a children and adult appealing novel offering an important and clear message that ‘Life is connected’.
The novel has been written in Gikuyu originally and illustrated abundantly with marvelous digital collages opening up new dimensions and vistas of imagination to the tale.
Other works by the Author:
Novels
1964 – Weep Not, Child
1965 – The River Between
1967 – A Grain of Wheat
1977 – Petals of Blood
1980 – Devil on the Cross
1989 – Matigari
2004 – Wizard of the Crow
Short story collections
1974 – A Meeting in the Dark
1976 – Secret Lives and Other Stories
Other nonfiction
1981 – Education for a National Culture
1983 – Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya
1986 – Mother, Sing for Me
1986 – Writing against Neo-Colonialism
2009 – Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance
2012 – Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing
Children’s Books
1986 – Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus
1988 – Njamba Nene and the Cruel Chief
1980 – Njamba Nene’s Pistol
