author
Josef Ohrwalder
1856–1913
A missionary priest whose life turned into an extraordinary survival story, he is best remembered for the firsthand account of his years in captivity during the Mahdist uprising in Sudan. His memoir brings together endurance, faith, and a rare witness’s view of a turbulent moment in 19th-century northeast Africa.
1 Audiobook
Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892
by Josef Ohrwalder, Sir F. R. (Francis Reginald) Wingate
About the author
Born in Lana in South Tyrol on March 6, 1856, Josef Ohrwalder became a Roman Catholic priest and joined the Comboni mission work connected with Sudan. He was ordained in Cairo in 1880 and soon began missionary service in the region.
In 1882, during the Mahdist uprising, he was taken captive and remained a prisoner for about ten years. After escaping in 1892, he became known for recording those experiences in Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp (1882–1892), a memoir valued for its vivid, firsthand view of the period.
Ohrwalder later returned to missionary work in Sudan, where he died in Omdurman in 1913. Today he is remembered both as a missionary and as an eyewitness writer whose book preserved an unusually direct account of danger, endurance, and daily life in captivity.