Wrestling with the Devil: A Prison Memoir

This is an informative first-hand account of being a political prisoner for a year in Kenya, with the context set by the author's sketching of the historical background to the country's colonization by Britain between the end of the 19thC until the 1950s. Too few Britons (or indeed, non-Kenyans in general) are aware of the decades of shameful domination, which rivalled the American South and apartheid for its injustices, culminating in the so-called 'Mau Mau uprising' which ended British colonial rule. As the author relates, what followed from later heavy-handed self rule brought its own injustices and led to his incarceration. Originally published in his native language for national readerships, this on-the-ground account of show more colonialism and its outcomes should be required reading for European and North American politicians who aspire to international interference in other cultures. show less

Ngugi wa Thiong’o recounts the year he spent imprisoned at Kenya’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, all for writing a play that empowered the community but challenged the regime. Powerful, insightful, humorous at times, and a good history lesson on White colonialism in Black communities.

This republished edition is really divided into two distinct parts: the first half is about Kenyan political history as a British colony, with the second half on the day-to-day injustices of being a political prisoner. Further confusing matters is the reality that the book is not structured in a linear fashion, jumping around in time from the author's arrest to the colonial times in the late 1800s/early 1900s to the country's liberation, with too many names to remember. To summarize the first half, quoting wa Thiong'o: "Pillage, plunder and murder. That was the colonial way." The only thing he forgot was imprisonment. He compares the capitulation of Kenyatta and Thuku with the long list of those for whom "detention and imprisonment show more couldn't break their spirits; it could at most break their bodies." He also recognizes the unity with indigenous Indians in their anti-imperialist struggle. The second half was lost on me, except for the funny story about how his drafts on toilet paper were seized (along with the final versions, which had been re-rolled), casting him into depression, until the drafts were returned ironically because of the writing. N.B.: the other rolls were eventually recovered as well. show less

For fans of A Long Walk to Remember (Nelson Mandela), Wrestling with the Devil is a prison memoir that is raw and real and exposes so much of what happened in Kenya. Highly recommend.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o writes:

Indeed, the right to strike was a worker’s basic human right: it was only the enslaved, because it has been taken away from them, who had no right to bargain for what they should be given for the use of their labor power. If a worker is unable to strike, then he is in the position of the enslaved.