A Grain of Wheat
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Narrated by:
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Ron Butler
About this listen
Set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya's independence from Britain, A Grain of Wheat follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952-1960 Emergency. At the center of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village's chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret. As we learn of the villagers' tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly story unfolds in which compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed, and loves are tested.
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- Narrated by: Aasif Mandvi
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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When Maximilian Ophuls is murdered outside his daughter's home by his Kashmiri Muslim driver, it appears to be a political killing. Ophuls is the former U.S. ambassador to India and America's leading figure in counter-terrorism. But there is much more to Ophuls and his assassin, a mysterious man calling himself "Shalimar the Clown", than meets the eye. One woman is at the center of their shared history, a history of betrayal and deception.
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Incredible
- By Barry on 12-07-05
By: Salman Rushdie
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Asura
- Tale of the Vanquished: The Story of Ravana and His People
- By: Anand Neelakantan
- Narrated by: Denzil Smith
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the Ramayana had been told innumerable times. The enthralling story of Rama, the incarnation of God, who slew Ravana, the evil demon of darkness, is known to every Indian. And in the pages of history, as always, it is the version told by the victors that lives on. The voice of the vanquished remains lost in silence. But what if Ravana and his people had a different story to tell? The story of the Ravanayana had never been told. Asura is the epic tale of the vanquished Asura people, a story that has been cherished by the oppressed outcastes of India for 3,000 years.
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Makes you thinks about everything
- By Anonymous User on 12-04-23
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Black Boy
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.
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Outstanding
- By Trevin Harvey on 11-11-20
By: Richard Wright
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Dragon Seed
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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To the Chinese the dragon is not an evil creature, but is a god and the friend of men who worship him. He "holds in his power prosperity and peace." Ruling the waters and the winds, he sends the good rain, is hence the symbol of fecundity. In the Hsia dynasty two dragons fought a great duel until both disappeared, leaving only a fertile foam from which were born the descendants of the Hsia. Thus, the dragons came to be looked upon as the ancestors of a race of heroes. This is the story of China at War.
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More Relevant Today than Ever
- By Robert on 07-29-13
By: Pearl S. Buck
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The Power and the Glory
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Graham Greene explores corruption and atonement in this penetrating novel set in 1930s Mexico during the era of Communist religious persecutions. As revolutionaries determine to stamp out the evils of the church through violence, the last Roman Catholic priest is on the lam, hunted by a police lieutenant. Despite his own sense of worthlessness—he is a heavy drinker and has fathered an illegitimate child—he is determined to continue to function as a priest until captured.
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Lousy recording quality of bad narration
- By Vincent on 10-08-12
By: Graham Greene
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The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
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Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
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Exile and the Kingdom
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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From a variety of masterfully rendered perspectives, these six stories depict people at painful odds with the world around them. A wife can only surrender to a desert night by betraying her husband. An artist struggles to honor his own aspirations as well as society's expectations of him. A missionary brutally converted to the worship of a tribal fetish is left with but an echo of his identity. Whether set in North Africa, Paris, or Brazil, the stories in Exile and the Kingdom are probing portraits of spiritual exile, and man's perpetual search for an inner kingdom.
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So good!
- By Christopher A. Douglas on 10-24-24
By: Albert Camus
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The Dream House
- By: Craig Higginson
- Narrated by: Terry Lloyd-Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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A farmhouse is being reproduced a dozen times, with slight variations, throughout a valley. Three small graves have been dug in the front garden, the middle one lying empty. A woman in a wheelchair sorts through boxes while her husband clambers around the old demolished buildings, wondering where the animals have gone. A young woman – called ‘the barren one’ behind her back – dreams of love, while an ageing headmaster contemplates the end of his life.
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Brilliant Dream House Narration
- By Simon Griffiths on 05-05-21
By: Craig Higginson
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The Good Earth
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.
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Wow
- By Ryan on 05-08-10
By: Pearl S. Buck
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The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
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Excellent novel
- By ALG on 11-09-21
By: Damon Galgut
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What listeners say about A Grain of Wheat
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Benjamin W. Adams
- 09-29-19
great book, wrong narrator
The narrator did not even bother to pronounce the author's name correctly. Otherwise, amazing book.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Afro History fan
- 07-31-19
One of Kenya's Great
I am glad I reread this book. Having read it as a student over 25 years ago I didn't appreciate the nuances of the stories Prof Ngugi wove. My one feedback for the Audible edition is for a better pronounciation of the book's characters and places...since they often repeat them....it can get irritating a bit how off the names were read out.
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4 people found this helpful
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- weicoolman
- 07-20-23
Intriguing story
An interesting look at a tumultuous period in kenyan history, read in a clear compelling voice.
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- Scott
- 08-13-21
A stirring story
I enjoyed this book the first time I read it years ago, and I found it just as riveting years later. A powerful story of Kenyan independence and the anti-colonial struggle, but also how devastating colonialism was to the African people. Ngugi should've already won the Nobel Prize for the bodybof his work. Maybe one day.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Michael Brown
- 05-09-22
Slow start
For me, The story seemed to meander for several before a coherent story appeared, but it was a thought-provoking story with well-written characters.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-01-24
A piece of Art
Ron Butler, narrated this to perfection.
The beautiful memories this book brings can’t be matched.
A great piece for sure. Thiongo never disappoints
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