Tale of long-distance driver who sold his soul to devil

Theophilus, a man of the cloth in Adana — modern-day Türkiye (or Turkey, if you will) — was a respected figure of remarkable moral fortitude. He was offered the office of bishop but, feigning humility, politely declined the offer. However, when the coveted office went to someone else, Theophilus became green with envy.

In his renewed quest for power, he turned to a sorcerer — perhaps the kind that today sends bees to ‘greet’ one’s enemies in Kenya. The sorcerer put him in touch with Lucifer.

Theophilus is then said to have gone ahead to renounce his Christian faith, before inking a blood-based pact with the ‘prince of darkness’. He later repented and was forgiven.

Selling one’s soul to the devil is also the fulcrum around which the 16th-century German legend of Dr Faustus (Faust) revolves.

Dr Faust clinches a deal with Mephistopheles, one of the devil’s factotums, to gain vast knowledge and lead a life of indulgence — akin to that of African politicians who thrive at the expense of millions of dirt-poor voters.

The tale was immortalised in Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus (1604) and later found a literary home in Goethe’s Faust (1808–1832).

Suffice it to say that the allegory of selling one’s soul to the devil has, over the years, come to symbolise the excesses of a greedy cabal willing to go to desperate lengths to secure a life of fame and fortune by any means necessary.

It is this kind of world that Ngumi Kibera — David Ngumi to some — a household name in Kenya’s literary circles, paints in The Gambler, a 200-page novella published by Oxford University Press (East Africa).

The Gambler is the story of Lex, aka Alex Kihara, a truck driver working for a cruel, shadowy boss known only as Bossman. Lex has never met this primitive capitalist whose business empire is structured to detect people on the verge of financial ruin — people who are then pounced upon and turned into slaves for Bossman.

Trouble comes knocking when Lex kills a man in a hotel deep in Tanzania, hops into his Actros juggernaut, and speeds towards the Kenyan border. Just metres from his country, however, Lex is caught up in an incident that makes him a marked and wanted man in both Kenya and Tanzania.

What follows is a riveting tale that showcases Kibera’s mastery of crafting an organic thriller that compels you to keep turning the pages to the very end.

And Kibera’s fluid language is not all this novel has to offer. He employs the classic ‘show, don’t tell’ technique, allowing the reader to discern characters’ traits and moral dilemmas rather than spoon-feeding them. This lends the novel a philosophical and moral thrust that resonates effortlessly.

For me, however, The Gambler’s greatest strength lies in its plot and narrative technique, which seamlessly complement the author’s thematic vision. Perhaps as a means of unmasking the allure of crime, Kibera first presents his characters as they are today — regretful, lamenting their choices.

He then takes us back to their past, showing the high life they once enjoyed before succumbing to greed. This deliberate structuring feels like a cautionary tale against the temptation of quick fixes and easy riches.

As I read the book, I could not help but admire Kibera’s deep understanding of the East African terrain. He navigates both Kenya and Tanzania with the ease of someone who knows the region like the back of his hand. The novel’s movement from Tanzania to Kenya reminded me of Julius Kambarage Nyerere’s famous putdown of Kenya, branding it “a man-eat-man society”—an assertion that, as Kibera’s book suggests, still rings true today.

This verbal uppercut galled Kenyan authorities so much that Sir Charles Njonjo, the fabled ‘Duke of Kabeteshire’, shot back, calling Tanzania “a man-eat-nothing society”. This ideological ping-pong was a relic of the Cold War era when Tanzania opted for socialism under its famed Ujamaa settlements while Kenya took the capitalist route.

To this day, Tanzania’s unity in diversity is often attributed to Ujamaa, while Kenya still grapples with a brand of politics that weaponises identity and dangerously politicises ethnicity.

The biographical details presented in The Gambler tell us that while Ngumi Kibera discovered his writing talent early, it was not until he left formal employment that he found time to write. This is hardly surprising in a country where most writers spend their early adult years torn between pursuing their passion and ensuring financial survival — often leading to untapped literary potential.

Ngumi studied at the University of Minnesota in the USA, where he earned an MBA. Upon returning to Kenya, he worked with Unilever and Chloride Exide, though not necessarily in that order. He also worked with Ogilvy & Mather, where he was a director handling key accounts. Perhaps it was during his sales and marketing days that he acquired the rich knowledge of the places that breathe life into The Gambler.

This storytelling prowess, it would seem, runs in Ngumi’s blood. His brother, Sam Kahiga, is a literary icon in Kenya, known for works such as Lover in the Sky.

In the 1970s, Sam was a producer at the Documentary Film Unit of the Voice of Kenya, where he wrote and produced numerous film scripts, including stories about Nairobi’s City Council schools. Sam also ran a popular column, Norman the Nomad, in one of Kenya’s dailies. I later met him in Uthiru, in Nairobi’s western suburbs, in the company of Benson Riungu — who wrote the Benson’s World column — and other scribes in the early 2000s.

Another of Ngumi’s siblings, Leonard Kibera, was an accomplished writer until his death in 1983. Leonard co-authored Potent Ash (1968) with Sam Kahiga. Some of Leonard’s short stories were so powerful that they were widely reproduced in literature anthologies that became set books in Kenya in the 1990s. In 1998, as a young Form Four boy, I was awed by ‘The Stranger’, a powerful short story on colonial excesses by Leonard Kibera, first published in Potent Ash and later included in The Winner and Other Stories, which was a set book in 1997 and 1998.

Leonard studied at the University of California and Stanford University before returning to Africa to teach at the University of Zambia and later at Kenyatta University until his passing in 1983. In 1967, Leonard won third prize in the BBC’s African drama contest, cementing his place in African literature.

As a young boy, I remember borrowing a copy of Prof Leonard Kibera’s Voices in the Dark (1970) from the Kenya National Library Service in Embu County.

Back to Ngumi and The Gambler. It is a testament to his literary skill that his first collection, Grapevine and Other Stories, won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1997.

His novel, Devil’s Hill won third place in the inaugural Burt Award for African Young Adult Literature: Kenya in 2012.

With over 25 titles to his name, Ngumi Kibera has rightfully earned his place in Kenya’s literary hall of fame as one of the most prolific writers of our time.

The writer is an editorial and publishing [email protected]