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Adewale Maja-Pearce analyzes contemporary African politics and society with absolute candor in these essays. ... Read more

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Wole Soyinka is one of today's most admired and respected African playwrights.He commands a worldwide audience, was elected as a foreign honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1986 won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In this volume, twenty-six internationally recognized writers--including John Updike, Amiri Baraka, Martin Esslin, Derek Walcott, Bernard Knox, G.ilson Knight, David Bromwich, and James Olney--contribute essays on Soyinka and his work. All turn their considerable skills upon Soyinka's oeuvre, helping the reader to understand precisely how his subtle artistry works.This definitive volume is indispensable for students of Soyinka's work, opening up Soyinka's African literary world to the Western reader. ... Read more

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This is the first formal publication of two early plays by Soyinka, The Invention (1959) and The Detainee (1965). Widely regarded as Soyinka's first play, The Invention reflects the obsession with race that marked the apartheid regime, and prophetically depicts the beginnings of the crumbling of the apartheid system in the futuristic setting of Johannesburg in 1976. It expresses the concern of the African diapsora with apartheid, which was felt to be an affront to the entire race. The Detainee is a radioplay. The plot foreshadows the writer's own imprisonment and his now familiar concerns about the vagaries of African politics. ... Read more

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This collection of essays examines Soyinka’s post-Nobel works against the backdrop of his earlier works, especially the so-called "conservative and impossible plays of early Soyinka." The contributors are concerned with the political tenor and temperament of the post-Nobel years and the strong presence of the symbolism of Ogun, the creative energy of Soyinka’s Yoruba cosmology, during those years. These essays celebrate the achievements of Soyinka by acknowledging his Ogunian characters, which are often the vehicles and victims of a wayward political world.

The post-Nobel era also reveals a positive and consistent step toward the dictum, "justice is the first condition of humanity."Soyinka’s plays, From Zia with Love to Beatification of Area Boys, illustrate this intense quest for social and political justice in his home country, Nigeria. In his later works, there is a grand narrative about the Nigerian State, which the contributors privilege as they point out Soyinka’s ever-conscious attempt to reframe the dark hole of a very troubled collective world.

This volume of essays is distinct from all others because it is the first to make concrete the debate that exists between the pre-Nobel and post-Nobel works of Soyinka and the exchange of both streams of literary output within different periods of Nigerian society. ... Read more

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"This index will facilitate in-depth research into 20 of Soyinka's major works including plays, novels, and poetry. . . . An important tool for anyone engaged in the study of Soyinka's writings." Choice ... Read more

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The author of this work takes issue with the prevalent use of "oral tradition" in the criticism of Europhone written literature as a cultural matrix. Instead, he proposes a view of literary tradition as the outcome of numerous acts of positioning in relation to indigenous resources. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (12)

The Other Side of the Story
Tahar Djaout's story is a "must read" for a number of reasons. First, for the English reader, the author constructs with great vividness and emotion the fear, sadness, and personal questioning that occurs when political groups slowly invade human freedoms. There are many passages that created extrordinary mental pictures and a brief understanding of the overwhelming emotions involved when extreme groups threaten and intimidate basic human freedoms.
Second, this book provides important insight to the other side of the battle against extremism.Few understand or even think about the places in the world where extremism has taken hold and what that means to the people and the culture of that country. Djaout's novel walks the reader through the emotions of uncertainty, questioning, anger, and fear.
The Last Summer of Reason provides a larger scope for the conflict between the world and extremists. The Western culture is not the only culture under attack - other cultures have been smothered under, where extremism has taken hold. If books are carriers of civilizations, then Tahar Djauout's novel carries the Western reader to a civilization struggling survive and to the other side of the conflict.

[...]- Join the discussion! Generating more demand for foreign literature translations into English.

Poetry in a Desolate Time
What a terrible review of this book by Publishers Weekly (at the top)."The concept of a culture in which art, beauty and expression are totally repressed is an interesting notion....."This kind of repression is much more than a notion.Look at today alone, with both Christian and Islamic extremism worldwide, thanks to the U.S. Empire's Christian Crusade against Muslims (Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Bosnia, on and on and on.) Both sides repress art, music, education and thinking.There is no need for the author to elaborate the history of the unnamed country in this novel. This is a book of poetry, of memories, of the present day horror of life, of profound loneliness in a country run by religious extremists.I think you will find much to connect with.

A lucid, harrowing, testimonial
For anyone who fears the threat of religious theocracy, whether in foreign lands or in our own, Djaout's masterful novel is a must read. His stunning prose exposes how fragile our civil liberties are in light of those who wish to dictate public policy by religious faith.For this brilliant illumination, Tahar Djaout was murdered by Islamic fundementalists. When asked why he committed the murder, one of Djaout's pious murders said "[because Djaout] wielded a fearsome pen that could have an effect on Islamic sectors."

When morality is judged by men who cloak reason in dogma, superstition, and faith, this tragic outcome seems inevitable.This novel, and Djaout's untimely and brutal murder, attest to all too familiar fact.

Unforgettable
It's been ages since I've read Djaout's "The Last Summer of Reason" but as time marches forward and summer is just behind me, I think of this masterful, poetic story and how it affected me as a reader.The interior life of a man I would never know and with whom I would have gladly shared bread made me revisit the power of the written word and its impact on its readership. I beheld the book, in light, yet others destroyed not only its potential conclusion but its writer.Djaout, with some possible prescience, tells the tale of societal alienation of one man, and brings all of us into the potential spotlight of what is moral and who is immoral.

An Unfinished Masterpiece
It is obvious that this book was still in manuscript form when it was discovered. My belief is that the author would have edited out certain passages, tightened up some of the prose, and fleshed out what is now only lightly sketched. Still, as a reader, I felt extraordinarily privileged in being able to read what was here. The novel is chilling and achingly beautiful. There are turns of phrase that are breath-taking, and there are descriptions of totalitarianism that caused my chest to constrict in dread. Reading this book is like reading novels written in the wake of fascism or Stalinism--the idea that all is controlled, no one is to be trusted, the only safety is within one's own head. But it is the meditations on books--on what books mean and how they mean--that is the true gem in this book. And the comparison of how one Book (be it Bible, Koran, or Little Red Book) can be given such power that it must eliminate all competition that comes from other books. And his thoughts on gender and what totalitarianism does to sexual relationships is deeply moving. There are so many things in this book to talk about. I grieve that its author is not around to participate in those discussions. ... Read more

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