# Wrestling with the Devil

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/ngugi-wa-thiong-o/wrestling-with-the-devil/9781784702243

![Wrestling with the Devil](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/ngugi-wa-thiong-o/wrestling-with-the-devil_978-17-8470-224-3-2835ba9e.webp?v=2026-09-26%2007%3A30%3A16)

- Book: [Wrestling with the Devil](https://www.bookquiver.com/ngugi-wa-thiong-o/wrestling-with-the-devil) ([Wrestling with the Devil.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/ngugi-wa-thiong-o/wrestling-with-the-devil.md))
- Authors: [Ngugi wa Thiong'o](https://www.bookquiver.com/ngugi-wa-thiong-o)
- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN: 978-17-8470-224-3
- Pages: 272
- Published: 2018-04-05
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

Ngugi 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, Ngugi 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 Ngugi’s 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.