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Title: You Must Set Forth at Dawn Author: Wole Soyinka Genre: Memoir Publisher: Ayebia and Bookcraft Pages: 578 Year of First Publication: 2006 (this edition 2009) I have read Professor Ali Mazrui's article 'Dr Jekyll and Mr. Soyinka' when he addressed some concerns Wole Soyinka had raised about him and his own misgivings. (Thank God that when two academicians clash in opinions and misgivings only shrapnel of knowledge is emitted). I would use Professor Mazrui's title to refer to this man of multiple personalities. My reading of Wole Soyinka's  You Must Set Forth at Dawn , written in the first person as most memoirs are,  presented to me a man of multiple personalities and had he not penned these words, I would have added the 'disorder', yet there is no point of divergence between psychosis and genius. Soyinka is political dramatist who does not dramatise his political involvement but politicise his dramas. His political life,...

Profile Blogging is going to be difficult for this season. I don't know the end of the season but its beginning I know of. Work is piling up in a certain geometric progression I cannot explain. Less of the excuses. We continue with what was started last week concerning the profiling of the Laureates of African Literature. Today we profile Wole Soyinka , full name Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka. Soyinka, born on 13th July 1934, is a Nigerian Writer, Poet and Playwright. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where later in 1973, he took his doctorate. Soyinka has played an active role in Nigeria's political history. In 1965, he made a broadcast demanding the cancellation of the rigged Western Nigeria Regional Elections following his seizure of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio. He was arrested, arraigned but freed on a technicality. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he w...

Last Friday I happen to pass by the Accra Mall, and the Silverbirds store attracted me. The books pulled me and without looking left or right I entered the store. In the store, I headed directly towards the African Fiction section and I was glad to see new books from established writers such as Atukwei Okai (Lorgoligi Logarithms and Oath of the Fontomfrom), Wole Soyinka and many others filling the spaces in the shelves. Whilst searching for nothing in particular I came across two books which I couldn't prevent myself from buying. There are books whose price tag, no matter how absurd they seem, cannot, in no way whatsoever, prevent the book-addict from buying. One such book was Chimamanda's The Thing Around Your Neck, though I think it was more out of pure passion to collect this author's works than the quality of the book, as I have not at that point in time read any synopsis of it. So in my search for nothing I came across Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Th...

Africa's first Nobelist, Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka - commonly referred to as Wole Soyinka, is celebrating his 77th birthday today. According to Cassava Republic, a list of literary events have been planned to celebrate this great personality. In Abuja, the Arojah Royal Theatre will be hosting a series of readings from Soyinka's plays and poems, as well as talks around the theme "My Favourite Wole Soyinka Book". [courtesy: Cassava Republic ] Over here at ImageNations - and this is something we would be looking out for, henceforth - I bring you links to Soyinka's books that have been reviewed here: The first is his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn  reviewed on August 25, 2010. The next is his play The Lion and the Jewel  reviewed on November 22, 2010. I also treat you to Soyinka's famous poem Telephone Conversation , wherein he treats racism with humour and sarcasm.             Telephone Conversation         ...

  Title: The Lion and the Jewel Author: Wole Soyinka Genre: Play Publishers: Oxford University Press Pages: 64 Year of Publication: 1963 Country: Nigeria Comedic. In the Lion and the Jewel, Wole Soyinka tells a funny story - almost in style of the cunning Ananse folklores told in Ghana - involving four 'main' characters. Sidi is the Jewel: the village's belle whose beauty has been captured by a photographer and published in a magazine. As a result she sees herself as above anyone in the village including Bale Baroka, the Lion of Ilunjinle. Bale Baroka, is the Lion of Ilunjinle and its chief. He has several wives and is courting the love of Sidi, the village's Belle (the Jewel). Lakunle is a young (of twenty three years) bombastic teacher in the village who is bent on bestowing Western culture onto the people of Ilunjinle. In the meantime his priority is to stop the payment of dowry. When in school he wears an old threadbare un-ironed English coat with tie...

Title: Madmen and Specialists Author: Wole Soyinka Genre: Play/Political Publisher: University Press PLC Pages: 77 Year of First Publication: 1971 Country: Nigeria Read for the Africa Reading Challenge Wole Soyinka's play Madmen and Specialists  have made me think twice about this genre. This is the first book I can boldly say 'it went over my head. I never got it.' Perhaps it was the mentality I carried into the book: I went into the book knowing that Soyinka's plays have deeper meanings other than its superficial mirth he creates with verve, which burdened me so that after three days of labouring through a 77-page book, finally turning over the last page, I still could not put the various issues together to create one coherent idea. This play, which was written when the author was in prison during Nigeria's Civil War, is sad and gloom, unlike The Lion and the Jewel .  The story opens with a quartet of mendicants: Aafa, an arrogant, sarcast...

I took this meme from Marie of Boston Bibliophile . I have taken the liberty to add some of the questions myself How many books read in 2010? Twenty-nine (29), two more than last year. Except that this includes two single stories. Plays (2); Memoir/(Auto)Biography (1); Single Stories (2); Anthologies (short stories) (4); Novels (20).  Total pages read was 7,799 (7,541 last year) and the average number of books per month is 2.42 (2.25 last year). How many did you review? Twenty-two (22). The remaining 7 were non-African novels. How many of the books read were on the Top 100? Only six. (hmm!) How man fiction and non-fiction? Only 1 non-fiction: You Must Set Forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka Male-Female Ratio 8 Female, 18 Male and 3 indeterminate (?), I mean anthologies from various writers. Favourite book of 2010 African book: The Beautyful Ones are not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah Non-African book: Between Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Wil...

Wole Soyinka's writings are like the palm kernel: difficult to penetrate but once inside it is all sweetness; however, even when the reading seem simple, the meaning is far hidden within a hard epicarp. The Nobelist is always on a different plane with his works and do not make things easy for the reader. The fun is for the reader to discover his or her own understanding or interpretation, just like any work of art. Yet, it is difficult for one to say 'Eureka' when it comes to Soyinka's works and I definitely am far from shouting famous Greek phrase. His Madmen and Specialists  still keeps me thinking, more than a year later.  Kongi's Harvest  (EPP Book Services, FP: 1965; 90) is no different. It is a complete Soyinka in words and spirit. Interspersed with humour, as most plays are, the story portrays the clash between traditional rule, represented by the Oba Danlola, and the modern system of governance, represented by Kongi. The dramatist extraordinaire, as u...

This list excludes single stories. Single stories are uncollected short stories published in magazines, blogs, online newspapers, and other places. It is believed that such stories would be collected by author and later 'formally' published, hence their exclusion. -1900 to 1909- -- -1910 to 1919- -- -1920 to 1929- The Castle :  Franz  Kafka Death Comes for the Archbishop : Willa Cather A Farewell to Arms :  Ernest Hemingway The Great Gatsby : F. Scott Fitzgerald Mrs. Dalloway : Virginia Woolf The Trial : Franz Kafka -1930 to 1939- Absalom, Absalom! :  William  Faulkner Auto da Fe :   Elias  Canetti Brave New World:   Aldous Huxley Chaka:  Thomas Mofolo Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day : Winifred Watson Theatre :   Somerset  W.   Maugham -1940 to 1949- 1984 :  George Orwell The Catcher in the Rye :  J.D. Salinger Cry, the Beloved Country:  Alan Paton Mine Boy:   ...

For other genres and categories, see Review There are many sub-genres of fiction. The list of books were amenable to the sub-genres provided below. Single stories are stories read online or downloaded and read in a pdf format. It could be part of a major collection such as The End of Skill  but was read as a stand alone. Novellas are complete stories (novels) that are 150 or less pages long. Children Stories (<12 years) Eno's Story by Ayodele Olofintuade Single Stories: Bombay's Republic by Rotimi Babatunde Butterfly Dreams by Beatrice Lamwaka Dayward by ZZ Packer Icebergs by Alistair Morgan In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata by Lauri Kubuitsile The End of Skill  by Mamle Kabu The Entire Northern Side was Covered with Fire by Rivka Galchen The Kid by Salvatore Scibona Here We Aren't, So Quickly by Jonathan Safran Foer Hitting Budapest by NoViolet Bulawayo How Kamau wa Mwangi Escaped into Exile by Mukoma wa Ngugi How Shall we Kill the Bishop...