Isara (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Wole Soyinka
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Fictionalized memoir
- Time of Work: 1937-1940, with flashbacks covering the preceding eighteen years
- Setting: The Yoruba region around Isara in southwestern Nigeria
- Principal Characters: Soditan Akinyode (essay), Wade Cudeback, Josiah, Mariam, Moroia, Sipe Efuape, Osibo, Damian (wemuja), Mrs. Esan, Saaki Akinsanya, Jagun
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Africa or Africans, Parents and children, Traveling or travelers, Colonialism, Sex or sexuality, Education or educators, World War II, England or English people, Fathers, Technology
- Locales: Nigeria
Soditan Akinyode, the methodical Head Teacher of the local school, sits in his “makeshift study” at his home in Abeokuta, Nigeria, reluctantly submitting to his self-imposed schedule to take care of business before dinner. He sighs, and a genie rises from a bottle, first as a presence, then as the physical shape of Osibo, a Western-educated pharmacist and friend. Just so, Isara: A Voyage Around “Essay” rises like a genie from a tin box that Wole Soyinka opened in 1984, a box that held the physical evidence of his father’s life: “a handful of letters, old journals with...
[The entire page is 2866 words long]
