Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Jeyifo examines the connections between the innovative and influential writings of Wole Soyinka and his radical political activism. Jeyifo carries out detailed analyses of Soyinkaâs most ambitious works, relating them to the controversies generated by Soyinkaâs use of literature and theatre for radical political purposes. The evaluations of this study are presented in the context of Soyinka's sustained engagement with the violence of collective experience in post-independence, postcolonial Africa. No existing study of Soyinkaâs works and career has attempted such a systematic investigation of their complex relationship to politics.
About the Author
Biodun Jeyifo is Professor of English at Cornell University. He is the author of The Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria (1984) and The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Radical Sociology of African Drama (1985). He has written essays and monographs on Anglophone African and Caribbean literatures, Marxist cultural theory and colonial and postcolonial studies and has also edited several volumes on African drama and critical discourse.
Table of Contents
Chronology; 1. âRepresentativeâand unrepresentable modalities of the self: the Gnostic, worldly and radical humanism of Wole Soyinka; 2. Tragic mythopoesis as postcolonial discourse - critical and theoretical writings; 3. The âdrama of existenceâ: sources and scope; 4. Ritual, anti-ritual and the festival complex in Soyinkaâs dramatic parables; 5. The ambiguous freight of visionary mythopoesis; fictional and nonfictional prose works; 6. Poetry, versification and the fractured burdens of commitment; 7. âThings fall togetherâ: Wole Soyinka in his own write.