Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Special Commissioned Essay on Modern African Literature, Pauline Dodgson - Representative Writers

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REPRESENTATIVE WRITERS

WOLE SOYINKA

Wole Soyinka was born in Abeokuta in western Nigeria in 1934. His father was a headmaster of a local school and his mother was a shopkeeper. In his autobiographical work, Ake: The Years of Childhood (1981), Soyinka refers to his mother as Wild Christian. He describes her as a woman of strongly held views with a quick temper. One of her main worries about her son was his tendency to brood, which she regarded as dangerous. She was, though, unable to cure him of this trait. He also recalls why he always thought of his father as Essay:

He was called S. A. from his initials, HM or Headmaster, or Es-Ay-Sho by his more rumbustious friends. For some reason, few called him by his own name and, for a long time, I wondered if he had any. It did not take long for him to enter my consciousness simply as Essay, as one of those careful stylistic exercises in prose which follow set rules of composition, are...

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1. Introduction
2. Essay: Introduction
3. Representative Writers
4. Modern African Literature And Other Literary Movements
5. Hallmark Works Of Modern African Literature
6. Critical Responses To African Literature
7. Further Reading
8. Copyright

1. African Literature