Devil on the Cross

(Paperback)

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The latest addition to the Penguin African Writers Series- the great Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o's powerful fictional critique of capitalism. The great Kenyan writer and Nobel Prize nominee'snovel that he wrote in secret, on toilet paper, while in prison-featuring an introduction by Namwali Serpell, the author of the novelThe Old Drift One of the cornerstones of Ng_x0169_g_x0129_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.

Reviews

One of our century's great novels. Tribune Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing. British Book News

Author Bio

Ng_x0169_g_x0129_ wa Thiong'ois an award-winning novelist, playwright, and essayist from Kenya whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He lives in Irvine, California. Namwali Serpell(introducer) has won the Caine Prize for African Writing and the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. Her debut novel, The Old Drift, is forthcoming from Hogarth. Born in Zambia, Serpell now lives in San Francisco, where she is an associate professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.