Description: "First published in Gikuyu by Heinemann Educational Books (East Africa) Ltd 1980. English-language edition translated by the author published in Great Britain by Heinemann Educational Publishers 1982. This edition with an introduction by Namwali Serpell published in Penguin Books 2017"--Title page verso.
Review Quotes: "One of the greatest writers of our time." --Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Guardian
"His novels . . . have been deservedly canonized by the iconic [Penguin Classics] series." --The Wall Street Journal "One of our century's great novels." --Tribune (UK) "Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a new direction for African writing." --British Book News "Striking." --The Guardian "Bold and disquieting and, like most great novels, wonderfully immersive. So immersive, in fact, that I dreamed about it. Devil on the Cross argues quite convincingly--so convincingly that, for a moment, I became a character in the novel, or perhaps Ngugi became the author of my life--that all of us are living within a dream. . . . This is not a well-behaved novel, the kind you might read with your book club while discussing character motivation over tea and biscuits. This is a novel that wants you to act. . . . It's the perennial question: What is the point of literature? . . . I can't say that Ngugi's intention was to mount a defense of literature when he wrote this, but I can tell you what this novel did to me. He taught me that it's time for us to build new dreams." --Tolpe Folarin, Los Angeles Review of Books