Devil on the Cross (Author Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O) | Words by Kamal Hussain

 

Written on toilet paper whilst in prison Devil on the Cross is far from crap literature. In fact it has been hailed by Tribune as one of the great novels of the century. Originally written in Gĩkũyũ and then translated into English, Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O’s allegorical critique of modern Kenya is a story about a country’s quest for decolonisation: first from a foreign elite and then their replacement indigenous puppets.

Using the oral storytelling traditions of the Gĩkũyũ, Devil on the Cross resists the traditional European novel form, which Ngũgĩ deems as a European bourgeois, colonialist and capitalist medium. It follows the journey of Jacinta Warĩĩnga (read as a metaphor for Kenya) who is invited to a devil’s feast to honour and crown Ilmorog’s seven cleverest thieves and robbers. No jokes about the British penal system, please: it sounds more like my bank’s AGM…

 

As Warĩĩnga’s story unravels she is joined by five other travellers who have received similar invitations. With plenty of traditional songs that, unfortunately, lose their impact in translation, the reader is made aware of the robbery that the ‘satan of capitalism’ has committed. One begins to realise that this robbery is happening on a global scale, and what’s even more frightening, is that the world’s populations are bending over

backwards to let it happen. With its roots based firmly in the Mau-Mau Uprising of

1952-1960 Devil on the Cross is an eye-opening read for all INQ guerrillas.