Saro-Wiwa, Ken - Adewale Maja-Pearce (review date 22 July 1988)
Adewale Maja-Pearce (review date 22 July 1988)
SOURCE: "Nigeria Laughs at Itself," in New Statesman and Society, Vol. I, No. 7, July 22, 1988, pp. 44.
[Maja-Pearce is a Nigerian-born author, editor, and educator. In the following review, she finds that while its subject matter is worthy of satire, Prisoners of Jebs is not entirely successful.]
Prisoners of Jebs is a collection of 53 sketches, first published as a weekly column between January 1986 and January 1987 in the Nigerian Vanguard newspaper. In the "Author's Note", Ken Saro-Wiwa tells us that he wanted his column to "examine weekly events in Nigeria", and to the extent that a knowledge of Nigerian politics of this period is helpful for an appreciation of many of the references, it is unlikely that the book will have much appeal to non-Nigerians.
The scene is set in the first sketch, "The Building of the Prison", in which we are told that the...
[The entire page is 508 words long]
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