Wrestling with the Devil

Wrestling with the Devil

By Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Pages

272

Rating

4.12

Year

1981

AutobiographyHistoryMemoirBiography MemoirAfricaPolitics

Description

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's powerful prison memoir begins half an hour before his release on 12 December 1978. A year earlier, he recalls, armed police arrived at his home and took him to Kenya’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. There, Ngũgĩ lives in a block alongside other political prisoners, but he refuses to give in to the humiliation. He decides to write a novel in secret, on toilet paper – it is a book that will become his classic, Devil on the Cross.

Wrestling with the Devil is an unforgettable account of the drama and challenges of living under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He captures not only the pain caused by his isolation from his family, but also the spirit of defiance and the imaginative endeavours that allowed him to survive.