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How long does it take to read Devil on the Cross?

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo

Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo takes about 4 hours 48 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 48 minutes

A weekend read

First published 1980. 262 pages, about 72,050 words.

10 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 8 hours
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 48 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours

The page count is the median across 15 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

"The great Kenyan writer and Nobel Prize nominee Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo's powerful fictional critique of capitalism. One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo's fame, Devil on the Cross was written in secret, on toilet paper, while Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo was in prison. 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"--

Subjects: Fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction, general, Kenya, fiction, Fiction--literary, Fiction--classics, Fiction--cultural heritage

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