Soyinka's Language


Book Description

This book explores in depth the uses of language in Wole Soyinka’s plays, poetry and prose. The author approaches Soyinka’s works through meticulous close readings, giving the writer his due by capturing the complexities, ambiguities, and nuances of his language.




Death and the King's Horseman


Book Description

Elesin Oba, the King's Horseman, has a single destiny. When the King dies, he must commit ritual suicide and lead his King's favourite horse and dog through the passage to the world of the ancestors. A British Colonial Officer, Pilkings, intervenes to prevent the death and arrests Elesin. The play is a set text for NEAB GCSE, NEAB A Level and NEAB A/S Level. 'A masterpiece of 20th century drama' - Guardian "A transfixing work of modern world drama" (Independent); "clearly a masterpiece. . . he achieves the full impact of Greek tragedy" (Irving Wardle, Independent on Sunday); "the action of the play is as inevitable and eloquent as in Antigone: a clash of values and cultures so fundamental that tragedy issues: a tragedy for each individual, each tribe" (Michael Schmidt, Daily Telegraph)




The Beatification of Area Boy


Book Description

Set in Nigeria, amid the scenes of everyday racketeering and general disquiet, the police try to clear the area of undesirables, as a traditional wedding between two illustrious and ambitious families is about to take place. This play is by Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka.




The Interpreters


Book Description

From the first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—his debut novel about a group of young Nigerian intellectuals trying to come to grips with themselves and their changing country. First published in 1965. Friends since high school, the five young men at the heart of The Interpreters have returned to Lagos after studying abroad to embark on careers as a physician, a journalist, an engineer, a teacher, and an artist. As they navigate wild parties, affairs of the heart, philosophical debates, and professional dilemmas, they struggle to reconcile the cultural traditions and Western influences that have shaped them—and that still divide their country. Soyinka deftly weaves memories of the past through scenes of the present as the five friends move toward an uncertain future. The result is a vividly realized fictional world rendered in prose that pivots easily from satire to tragedy and manages to be both wildly funny and soaringly poetic.




Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth


Book Description

'Soyinka's greatest novel ... No one else can write such a book' - Ben Okri 'A high-jinks state-of-the-nation novel' - Chibundu Onuzo A FINANCIAL TIMES AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR A towering figure in world literature, Wole Soyinka aims directly at the corridors of power as he warns against corruption both of high office and of the soul, with a dazzling lightness of touch and gleeful irreverence. Much to Doctor Menka's horror, some cunning entrepreneur has decided to sell body parts from his hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Already at the end of his tether from the horrors he routinely sees in surgery, he shares this latest development with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne, who has never before met a puzzle he couldn't solve. Neither realise how close the enemy is, nor how powerful. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria's political elite, and a provocative call to arms from one of the country's most relentless political activists and an international literary giant. MORE PRAISE FOR WOLE SOYINKA: 'You don't see the things the same when you encounter a voice like that' - Toni Morrison 'One of the best there is today, a poet and a thinker, who knows both how the world works and how the world should work' - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie




Language and Style in Soyinka


Book Description




The Open Sore of a Continent


Book Description

The events that led up to dissident writer Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution in 1995 marked Nigeria's decline from a post-colonial success story to its current military dictatorship. Wole Soyinka, whose own Nigerian passport was confiscated by the Nigerian military in 1994, explores the history and future of Nigeria in a compelling jeremiad that is as intense as it is provocative, learned, and wide-ranging.




The Jero Plays


Book Description




Season of Anomy


Book Description

From the first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and one of our fiercest political activists—this political novel about the dangers of corruption, greed, and the desire for power is the follow-up to his acclaimed debut novel The Interpreters. An African nation's struggle for independence is interwoven with a tragic love story in this compelling novel. When Ofeyi, who writes advertising jingles for the Cocoa Corporation, is sent on a promotional tour of his unnamed country, he arrives at a coastal village whose remote location has long kept it insulated from the corrupt national government. Here Ofeyi discovers a traditional way of life that is still flourishing and he is inspired to spread its life-affirming values to his suffering country. But challenging the forces of greed and exploitation provokes a horrific response, and when Ofeyi’s beloved wife goes missing, he must travel across a war-scarred landscape in search of her. Infusing the myth of Orpheus with his signature lyricism and moral profundity, Soyinka creates a dazzling story about the clash between idealism and reality.




European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

The first major comparative study of African writing in western languages, European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Albert S. Gérard, falls into four wide-ranging sections: an overview of early contacts and colonial developments "Under Western Eyes"; chapters on "Black Consciousness" manifest in the debates over Panafricanism and Negritude; a group of essays on mental decolonization expressed in "Black Power" texts at the time of independence struggles; and finally "Comparative Vistas," sketching directions that future comparative study might explore. An introductory e.