Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Soyinka, Wole (Vol. 179) - Christopher Hope (review date 11 December 1989)


Soyinka, Wole (Vol. 179) - Christopher Hope (review date 11 December 1989)

Christopher Hope (review date 11 December 1989)

SOURCE: Hope, Christopher. “Rebels and Dreamers.” New Republic 201, no. 24 (11 December 1989): 40-2.

[In the following review, Hope examines how Ìsarà: A Voyage around Essay represents a diverse range of literary genres, including memoirs, fairy tales, moral fables, and political studies.]

When the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1986, the decision of the Swedish Academy to honor an African writer led to a controversy in Nigeria, and in other parts of Africa, that has not yet abated. Soyinka was attacked by some who espouse what is known as the “Afro-phone” cause; they consider the bestowal of such “European” baubles upon African writers limiting and demeaning at best, and at worst a deliberate attempt imperialistically to undermine the vigor of indigenous African literature. “Afro-centrists,” thundered the Nigerian critic Chinweizu at a...

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