author
Josef Ohrwalder
1856–1913
A missionary's memoir of captivity, escape, and survival in nineteenth-century Sudan gives his writing an unusual immediacy. His best-known book draws on ten years spent among the Mahdists and offers a vivid firsthand account of a turbulent period in the region.
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 in 1856, Josef Ohrwalder became a Roman Catholic missionary and later worked in Sudan. During the Mahdist uprising, he was captured and spent about ten years in captivity before escaping.
That experience shaped the book he is best known for, Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp, 1882–1892. Based on his own manuscripts, it was translated into English and became a notable firsthand narrative of life in the Mahdist camp.
Ohrwalder died in Omdurman in 1913. Today he is remembered both as a missionary and as the author of a rare personal record of conflict, endurance, and faith.