From the first African Nobel Laureate, this is the first in a series of Olufosoye Annual Lectures on Religions, delivered at the University of Ibadan in 1991. Soyinka, in his characteristically stimulating way, discusses the religions of Nigeria in their national context, and other religions from around the world. The author says "At one conceptual level or the other...deeply embedded as an article of faith, is a relegation of this material world to a mere staging-post...then universal negation...Existence, as we know it, comes to the end that was pre-ordained from the beginning of time....
From the first African Nobel Laureate, this is the first in a series of Olufosoye Annual Lectures on Religions, delivered at the University of Ibadan ...
Contemporary African Plays, edited with Introductions by Martin Banham and Jane Plastow of Leeds University, is a collection of some of the most exciting plays from the past twenty-five years of African theatre, spanning the continent's rich and disparate regional and cultural traditions. Included in this collection are three of the most significant plays of this century plus three brilliant plays which will be new to Western audiences:
Death and the King's Horseman - A masterpiece from the Nobel-prize-winning Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka
Woza...
Contemporary African Plays, edited with Introductions by Martin Banham and Jane Plastow of Leeds University, is a collection of s...
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.
Set in Nigeria, amid the scenes of everyday racketeering and general disquiet, the police try to clear the area of undesirables, as a traditional wedd...
'Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer and arguably one of her finest' - New York Times Book Review
A Play of Giants is a savage satire on some of the best-known dictators of our time (including Idi Amin); it brings together a group of dictatorial African leaders at bay in an embassy in New York attempting to make decisions together. Its theatrical predecessors include: Genet's The Balcony and Brecht's Arturo Ui.
From Zia with Love and A Scourge of Hyacinths; When the Military decrees that a crime carrying a...
'Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer and arguably one of her finest' - New York Times Book Review
Six masterful works by the Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian playwright.
Death and the King's Horseman: 'A transfixing work of modern world drama' - Independent Madmen and Specialists: 'A luminous play, examining the way in which war exposes and clarifies human conduct' - Observer Opera Wonyosi, adapted from Gay's The Beggar's Opera: 'Swaggering and scabrous, at once a verbal spree and a fierce assault on totalitarianism' - Observer
The volume also contains The Trials of Brother Jero and Jero's Metamorphosis, classic comedies of modern Nigerian...
Six masterful works by the Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian playwright.
Death and the King's Horseman: 'A transfixing work of modern world d...
Nobel Laureate in Literature Wole Soyinka considers all of Africa--indeed, all the world--as he poses this question: once repression stops, is reconciliation between oppressor and victim possible? In the face of centuries-long devastation wrought on the African continent and her Diaspora by slavery, colonialism, Apartheid, and the manifold faces of racism, what form of recompense could possibly suffice? In a voice as eloquent and humane as it is forceful, Soyinka boldly challenges in these pages the notions of simple forgiveness, confession, and absolution as strategies for social healing....
Nobel Laureate in Literature Wole Soyinka considers all of Africa--indeed, all the world--as he poses this question: once repression stops, is reconci...
A naked satire on the rule of General Abacha in Nigeria, the play chronicles the debauched rule of General Basha Bash who takes power in a coup and exchanges his general's uniform for a robe and crown re-christening himself King Babu. In the manner of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, Soyinka develops a special childish language for his cast of characters who have names like Potipoo and General Uzi. Weaving together burlesque comedy, theatrical excess and storytelling, King Babu has already been coind as a pet name for Africa's despot par excellence Robert Mugabe.
A naked satire on the rule of General Abacha in Nigeria, the play chronicles the debauched rule of General Basha Bash who takes power in a coup and ex...
"His total conviction in multiple existences within our physical world is as much an inspiration to some of the most brilliant fiction in Yoruba writing as it is a deeply felt urge to 'justify the ways of God to man.'"Wole Soyinka, translator and Nobel Laureate A classic work of African literature, Forest of a Thousand Daemons is the first novel to be written in the Yoruba language. First published in Nigeria in 1939, it is one of that country's most revered and widely read works, and its influence on Nigerian literature is profound, most notably in the works of Amos...
"His total conviction in multiple existences within our physical world is as much an inspiration to some of the most brilliant fiction in Yoruba writi...
A member of the unique generation of African writers and intellectuals who came of age in the last days of colonialism, Wole Soyinka has witnessed the promise of independence and lived through postcolonial failure. He deeply comprehends the pressing problems of Africa, and, an irrepressible essayist and a staunch critic of the oppressive boot, he unhesitatingly speaks out.
In this magnificent new work, Soyinka offers a wide-ranging inquiry into Africa's culture, religion, history, imagination, and identity. He seeks to understand how the continent's history is entwined with the...
A member of the unique generation of African writers and intellectuals who came of age in the last days of colonialism, Wole Soyinka has witnessed...
