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List of contents
Chronology; 1. 'Representative' and unrepresentable modalities of the self: the Gnostic, worldly and radical humanism of Wole Soyinka; 2. Tragic mythopoesis as postcolonial discourse - critical and theoretical writings; 3. The 'drama of existence': sources and scope; 4. Ritual, anti-ritual and the festival complex in Soyinka's dramatic parables; 5. The ambiguous freight of visionary mythopoesis; fictional and nonfictional prose works; 6. Poetry, versification and the fractured burdens of commitment; 7. 'Things fall together': Wole Soyinka in his own write.
About the author
Biodun Jeyifo is Professor of English at Cornell University. He is the author of The Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria (1984) and The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Radical Sociology of African Drama (1985). He has written essays and monographs on Anglophone African and Caribbean literatures, Marxist cultural theory and colonial and postcolonial studies and has also edited several volumes on African drama and critical discourse.
Summary
Jeyifo examines the connections between the innovative and influential writings of Wole Soyinka and his radical political activism. Jeyifo carries out detailed analyses of Soyinka's most ambitious works, relating them to the controversies generated by Soyinka's use of literature and theatre for radical political purposes.
