Ngugi wa Thiongo's recently published memoir in three parts offers the reader a signficant entry point into the world that made him. The three volumes, Dreams in a Time of War (2010), In the House of the Interpreter (2012) and The Birth of a Dream Weaver (2016) trace the evolution of Ngugi from childhood to young adulthood, from the village to the city, from the colonial period into the uhuru moment. These journeys, reveal moments of intellectual, cultural as well as political awakening. They reflect how 'knowing', Ngugi's encounter with knowledge(s) beyond his home and imediate community contribute to his 'becoming'. To read the stories in these volumes is to discover the various intellectual intimacies and traditions, some outrightly spelled out, some suggested, that mould Ngugi from a young man in the village, one of a select few who attended privileged schooling in the colonial period, a university undergraduate aspriring to a new world, a writer, to a radical and celebrated intellectual in independent Kenya. This essay seeks to explore the specifics of the different intellectual traditions that Ngugi encountered in the schools he attended, as he recounts in the memoirs, and how they impacted his knowing and becoming the Ngugi we know today.