Devil on the Cross - Paperback

by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (Author), Namwali Serpell (Introduction by), Chinua Achebe (Editor)

The great Kenyan writer and Nobel Prize nominee's novel that he wrote in secret, on toilet paper, while in prison--featuring an introduction by Namwali Serpell, the author of the multiple prize-winning novel The Old Drift and the nationally bestselling work of criticism On Morrison

One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's fame, Devil on the Cross is a powerful fictional critique of capitalism. It tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later by a corrupt businessman. As she struggles to survive, Wariinga begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country. An impassioned cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their own local dialects, Devil on the Cross has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African literature.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author Biography

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938-2025) was an award-winning novelist, playwright, and essayist from Kenya whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. In addition to Devil on the Cross, his novels A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood, The River Between, and Weep Not, Child are available from Penguin Classics.

Namwali Serpell (introduction) has won the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Caine Prize for African Writing, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. The author of the novels The Old Drift (the winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times's Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction) and The Furrows (one of The New York Times's Ten Best Books of 2022) and the works of criticism Stranger Faces (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism) and On Morrison (a national bestseller), she is a professor of English at Harvard. Born in Zambia, she lives in New York.