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賲匕賰乇丕鬲 爻噩賷賳
賱賯丿 兀禺匕 賴匕 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 兀卮賰丕賱丕賸 賰孬賷乇丞 . 賲賳賴丕 賲爻兀賱丞 賲丕 丕賱匕賶 賷噩亘 兀賳 賷丨鬲賵賷賴貙 賵賲丕 丕賱匕賶 賷噩亘 鬲兀噩賷賱賴 貙 賵賲丕 丕賱匕賶 賷噩亘 兀賳 賳賲丨賵賴 賰賱賷賸賾丕 貙 賵賰丕賳 賴匕丕 賰賱賴 禺丕囟毓賸丕 賱賲卮丕賰賱 丕賱賲賱丕亍賲丞 貨 賱賯丿乇丞 丕賱賲丐賱賮 丕賱賲爻鬲賲乇丞 毓賱賶 丕賱鬲兀孬賷乇 賮賶 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 丿丕禺賱 亘賱丿賴貙 賵賮賶 鬲丨賯賷賯 丕賱鬲睾賷賷乇丕鬲 丕賱孬賵乇賷丞 丕賱鬲賶 兀氐亘丨 賲賰乇爻賸丕 賱賴丕 兀賰孬乇 賲賳 兀賶 賵賯鬲 賲囟賶貙 賰賱 匕賱賰 兀丿賶 丕賱賶 鬲睾賷賷乇 丕賱賮賵乇賲丕貙 賵丕賱毓賳賵丕賳貙 亘賱 賮賰乇丞 賴匕丕 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 丕孬賳鬲賶 毓卮乇丞 賲乇丞 毓賱賶 丕賱兀賯賱
453 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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About the author
Wole Soyinka
218听books1,186听followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the 欧宝娱乐 database.
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993鈥�98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of If岷固€. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.
In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993鈥�98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of If岷固€. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.
In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".
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January 26, 2019
Soyinka鈥檚 prison memoir The Man Died is both a testament of endurance under duress and a powerful piece of literature in its own merit. In 1967, Soyinka was arrested for a period of 22 months and held in solitary confinement in a 4ft. by 8ft. cell.
However, the book is not a memoir in the sense that this happened, then this happened and then鈥� The text itself is a partial representation of the facts as far as they can be evidenced or researched, and a partial stream-of-consciousness into the spiraling chaos of a mind entrapped in entropy is deprived of contact with the outside world, is deprived of books, is deprived of news (with only a few rare exceptions), is deprived of anything we take for granted, like a decent meal or a toilet bowl. And it is in this intertwining dance between chapters of events and circumstances that led to his imprisonment and chapters bordering on the inner psyche of a man about to lose his mind that the power of his narrative lies鈥攂etween the real and the surreal.
Whatever one wants to make of history in hindsight will often depend on the philosophical context of the present day. Thus, without going into the justice or injustice of it all, what matters is the sheer willpower of Soyinka to not only withstand the torment he underwent but to even fight it by occasional bouts of fasting, at his peril.
Fasting was really a gamble, were it up to his imprisoners and the then head-of-state Gowon, they would have probably liked nothing more than to see Soyinka die. But, with the whole world watching, and with prominent voices shouting, they dared not let this man die.
Soyinka, however, captures the plight of another who was not as fortunate:
So, what according to the military government was Soyinka鈥檚 crime that warranted this harsh punishment (and unjust to any human being)? It was Soyinka trying physically, rather than with pen only, to help stop the Nigerian civil war as soon as it began. It was his meeting with the secessionist Igbo leader Ojukwu that landed him in prison, on some false pretext that he was supporting them in one way or another. Soyinka, however, met with senior commanders in the government, too. In the end, he wanted to form a third party, a pacifist one if you will, to intercede and bring both sides to a truce. But that never came to fruition.
What is beautiful in this memoir is the sense of closure it must have offered its sufferer. For in writing there is catharsis鈥攂e it pain or joy鈥攚hich spells relief. And as Nadine Gordimer eloquently summed it up in her essay 鈥楽oyinka the Tiger:鈥�
I suppose that in the end, the man, Wole Soyinka, did die鈥攁 necessary spiritual death, in order to be reborn cleansed from the hatred and cruelty that was plagued upon him. At least that is what I would like to imagine he achieved by sharing this book with us.
However, the book is not a memoir in the sense that this happened, then this happened and then鈥� The text itself is a partial representation of the facts as far as they can be evidenced or researched, and a partial stream-of-consciousness into the spiraling chaos of a mind entrapped in entropy is deprived of contact with the outside world, is deprived of books, is deprived of news (with only a few rare exceptions), is deprived of anything we take for granted, like a decent meal or a toilet bowl. And it is in this intertwining dance between chapters of events and circumstances that led to his imprisonment and chapters bordering on the inner psyche of a man about to lose his mind that the power of his narrative lies鈥攂etween the real and the surreal.
Whatever one wants to make of history in hindsight will often depend on the philosophical context of the present day. Thus, without going into the justice or injustice of it all, what matters is the sheer willpower of Soyinka to not only withstand the torment he underwent but to even fight it by occasional bouts of fasting, at his peril.
When the decision to fast is taken, I dwell on the next meal in my mind, I let my body crave it and I let the food come to me. I am hungry. 鈥� A fierce protest commences in the pit of my stomach and I let it rage. Armed with the power of my veto, I stand aside and enjoy the violent conflict, waiting for my cue to thump the gavel.
Fasting was really a gamble, were it up to his imprisoners and the then head-of-state Gowon, they would have probably liked nothing more than to see Soyinka die. But, with the whole world watching, and with prominent voices shouting, they dared not let this man die.
Soyinka, however, captures the plight of another who was not as fortunate:
The groans do not cease nor do they diminish. The bloodless inhuman steadiness of this sound of human suffering is the most unnerving aspect of it all. It does not come from volition but from weak inertia of a muted pulse. As if the man has merely left his mouth open and the sound emerges with his breathing out.
It is close to dawn when the sound stops. Abruptly. No weakening ever, neither faltering nor a rallying intensity. I knew it is over.
鈥�
Soon it is the hour when 鈥榓ll the dead awaken.鈥� As the key turns in my lock I ask the warder what became of the suffering man.
鈥楾he man died,鈥� he said.
So, what according to the military government was Soyinka鈥檚 crime that warranted this harsh punishment (and unjust to any human being)? It was Soyinka trying physically, rather than with pen only, to help stop the Nigerian civil war as soon as it began. It was his meeting with the secessionist Igbo leader Ojukwu that landed him in prison, on some false pretext that he was supporting them in one way or another. Soyinka, however, met with senior commanders in the government, too. In the end, he wanted to form a third party, a pacifist one if you will, to intercede and bring both sides to a truce. But that never came to fruition.
What is beautiful in this memoir is the sense of closure it must have offered its sufferer. For in writing there is catharsis鈥攂e it pain or joy鈥攚hich spells relief. And as Nadine Gordimer eloquently summed it up in her essay 鈥楽oyinka the Tiger:鈥�
The Man Died is, in a very real and strange sense, the victory of art over all the forces of philistinism. We are inclined to forget that these include hatred and cruelty.
I suppose that in the end, the man, Wole Soyinka, did die鈥攁 necessary spiritual death, in order to be reborn cleansed from the hatred and cruelty that was plagued upon him. At least that is what I would like to imagine he achieved by sharing this book with us.
January 12, 2020
爻賷乇丞 匕丕鬲賷丞 賱賱賰丕鬲亘 賷爻乇丿 賮賷賴丕 鬲賮丕氐賷賱 賮鬲乇丞 丕毓鬲賯丕賱賴貙 賱賲 賷賰賳 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 鬲賵孬賷賯丕賸 賱賱兀丨丿丕孬 賮賯胤 亘賱 乇丨賱丞 丿丕禺賱 毓賯賱 爻賵賷賳賰丕 賵賴賱丕賵爻賴 賵禺胤乇丕鬲 賮賰乇賴 兀孬賳丕亍 毓夭賱鬲賴 丕賱廿噩亘丕乇賷丞 ..
兀丨亘亘鬲 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 賵兀毓鬲賯丿 兀賳賴丕 賱賲 鬲賳賱 - 亘賳爻禺鬲賴丕 丕賱毓乇亘賷丞 - 丕賱卮賴乇丞 丕賱鬲賷 鬲爻鬲丨賯賴丕.
兀丨亘亘鬲 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 賵兀毓鬲賯丿 兀賳賴丕 賱賲 鬲賳賱 - 亘賳爻禺鬲賴丕 丕賱毓乇亘賷丞 - 丕賱卮賴乇丞 丕賱鬲賷 鬲爻鬲丨賯賴丕.
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March 21, 2024 鈥淚 loro attuali eccessi e il reciproco condono del crimine hanno reso necessario il contenuto senza compromessi di questo libro, perch茅 il primo passo verso la detronizzazione del terrore consiste nello sgonfiare la sua farisaica ipocrisia.
E' solo il primo passo.
In qualsiasi popolo che volontariamente si sottopone alla "quotidiana umiliazione della paura", l'uomo muore.鈥�
- 14 dicembre 1971- .
猫 un m茅moir in cui il drammaturgo nigeriano, Soyinka, raccont貌 l鈥檃rresto e la detenzione che sub矛 tra il 1967 ed il 1969, ossia negli anni della guerra civile nigeriana.
La nazione era divisa a met脿 tra la Repubblica del Biafra a sud-est guidata dal colonnello Ojukwu e il governo centrale di Lagos retto dal colonnello-dittatore Gowon,
Scritto nel 1971 ma pubblicato in Italia solo nel 1986, sull鈥檕nda del Premio Nobel per la Letteratura assegnatogli, si apre con una lettera.
Scritta in carcere ed affidata in mani che lo tradirono (diventando cos矛 un ulteriore strumento per aggravare le accuse nei suoi confronti e falsificarne delle altre), questa missiva 猫 un vero e proprio atto di accusa che l鈥檃utore formula contro il regime e contro la guerra.
Schifato, scrive parole dure contro una societ脿 che non vuole pi霉 accettare pi霉 per la massiccia corruzione, le condotte ingiuste, gli arresti ingiustificati, le politiche di separazione etnica...
Fondamentalmente la sua ribellione 猫 contro l鈥檌pocrisia intellettuale che invece che utilizzare gli strumenti della cultura per farsi sentire gira sistematicamente la testa se non, addirittura, l'abbassa in uno stato di vergognoso asservimento al potere.
Il racconto 猫 suddiviso in tre distinti periodi (Ibadan-Lagos 1967, Kaduna 1968 e Kaduna 1969).
Dal momento dell鈥檃rresto da parte dei servizi segreti (che lui chiama apertamente Gestapo per la somiglianza delle modalit脿 di azione) si apre uno scenario quasi surreale con interrogatori- farsa che mirano solo a trovare la scusa giusta per la sua detenzione.
Il momento in cui gli mettono le catene 猫 vissuto duramente da Soynka che riflette su questo antico segno di oppressione che ricorda la tratta degli schiavi e si protrae in un presente in cui i ceppi da metaforici che erano (bloccando, di fatto, la libert脿 di espressione) si fanno nuovamente materiali impendendo anche la libert脿 del corpo.
Ma le sue riflessioni non sono personali perch茅 Soynka denuncia la condizione di asservimento di tutto un popolo.
Il racconto procede con la falsit脿 di accuse precostruite ad hoc per un detenuto famoso e sotto l鈥檕cchio degli osservatori esteri; gli scioperi della fame, il rapporto con lo spazio e le guardie.
E鈥�, al tempo stesso, un lento scivolare in uno spazio di annullamento e un diario di resistenza.
Un libro duro, non facile anche per i numerosi riferimenti storici e culturali.
Un titolo palesemente significativo: in un regime di tirannia lo schema in cui questa si giustifica prevede l鈥檃nnullamento dell鈥檜manit脿 attraverso la violenza sia psicologica che fisica.
"l鈥檜omo muore in tutti coloro che conservano il silenzio di fronte alla tirannia鈥�
il messaggio di Soyinka 猫 chiaro:
la possibilit脿, nonostante tutto, di restare 'umani' esiste solo nella ribellione personale a cui dare un senso collettivo.
E penso..
Era il 1967 quando Guccini scriveva .
La musica inizia a diventare strumento di denuncia.
Un indice accusatorio che intende distruggere l鈥檌pocrisia sociale.
La generazione del 鈥�68 ha poi scrollato le coscienze urlando:
芦Basta far finta di niente!!!.禄
Interessante che in luoghi e contesti cos矛 distanti (e non solo geograficamente), da personaggi cos矛 differenti siano state fatte riflessioni cos矛 affini.
Oggi dopo sessant鈥檃nni prendiamo atto che, oltre a dio e all鈥檜omo, sta morendo tutto un pianeta e forse, a differenza di Guccini, pochi di noi credono ancora nella resurrezione...
E' solo il primo passo.
In qualsiasi popolo che volontariamente si sottopone alla "quotidiana umiliazione della paura", l'uomo muore.鈥�
- 14 dicembre 1971- .
猫 un m茅moir in cui il drammaturgo nigeriano, Soyinka, raccont貌 l鈥檃rresto e la detenzione che sub矛 tra il 1967 ed il 1969, ossia negli anni della guerra civile nigeriana.
La nazione era divisa a met脿 tra la Repubblica del Biafra a sud-est guidata dal colonnello Ojukwu e il governo centrale di Lagos retto dal colonnello-dittatore Gowon,
Scritto nel 1971 ma pubblicato in Italia solo nel 1986, sull鈥檕nda del Premio Nobel per la Letteratura assegnatogli, si apre con una lettera.
Scritta in carcere ed affidata in mani che lo tradirono (diventando cos矛 un ulteriore strumento per aggravare le accuse nei suoi confronti e falsificarne delle altre), questa missiva 猫 un vero e proprio atto di accusa che l鈥檃utore formula contro il regime e contro la guerra.
Schifato, scrive parole dure contro una societ脿 che non vuole pi霉 accettare pi霉 per la massiccia corruzione, le condotte ingiuste, gli arresti ingiustificati, le politiche di separazione etnica...
Fondamentalmente la sua ribellione 猫 contro l鈥檌pocrisia intellettuale che invece che utilizzare gli strumenti della cultura per farsi sentire gira sistematicamente la testa se non, addirittura, l'abbassa in uno stato di vergognoso asservimento al potere.
Il racconto 猫 suddiviso in tre distinti periodi (Ibadan-Lagos 1967, Kaduna 1968 e Kaduna 1969).
Dal momento dell鈥檃rresto da parte dei servizi segreti (che lui chiama apertamente Gestapo per la somiglianza delle modalit脿 di azione) si apre uno scenario quasi surreale con interrogatori- farsa che mirano solo a trovare la scusa giusta per la sua detenzione.
Il momento in cui gli mettono le catene 猫 vissuto duramente da Soynka che riflette su questo antico segno di oppressione che ricorda la tratta degli schiavi e si protrae in un presente in cui i ceppi da metaforici che erano (bloccando, di fatto, la libert脿 di espressione) si fanno nuovamente materiali impendendo anche la libert脿 del corpo.
Ma le sue riflessioni non sono personali perch茅 Soynka denuncia la condizione di asservimento di tutto un popolo.
Il racconto procede con la falsit脿 di accuse precostruite ad hoc per un detenuto famoso e sotto l鈥檕cchio degli osservatori esteri; gli scioperi della fame, il rapporto con lo spazio e le guardie.
E鈥�, al tempo stesso, un lento scivolare in uno spazio di annullamento e un diario di resistenza.
Un libro duro, non facile anche per i numerosi riferimenti storici e culturali.
Un titolo palesemente significativo: in un regime di tirannia lo schema in cui questa si giustifica prevede l鈥檃nnullamento dell鈥檜manit脿 attraverso la violenza sia psicologica che fisica.
"l鈥檜omo muore in tutti coloro che conservano il silenzio di fronte alla tirannia鈥�
il messaggio di Soyinka 猫 chiaro:
la possibilit脿, nonostante tutto, di restare 'umani' esiste solo nella ribellione personale a cui dare un senso collettivo.
E penso..
Era il 1967 quando Guccini scriveva .
La musica inizia a diventare strumento di denuncia.
Un indice accusatorio che intende distruggere l鈥檌pocrisia sociale.
La generazione del 鈥�68 ha poi scrollato le coscienze urlando:
芦Basta far finta di niente!!!.禄
Interessante che in luoghi e contesti cos矛 distanti (e non solo geograficamente), da personaggi cos矛 differenti siano state fatte riflessioni cos矛 affini.
Oggi dopo sessant鈥檃nni prendiamo atto che, oltre a dio e all鈥檜omo, sta morendo tutto un pianeta e forse, a differenza di Guccini, pochi di noi credono ancora nella resurrezione...
March 1, 2013
A savage, stabbing inquiry, not into human nature proper, but into human nature viewed through the concave mirrors of solitary confinement and human evil, stretched and warped into horrible familiarity. Soyinka is hard to read, if you read him straight -- this book is most effective when you enter into its twisting, doubling corridors and let Soyinka transform your mind and introspection into a prison of your own. Like most great books, this one works on several levels: an indictment of political injustice, a pyschological study of the prisoner, and (pardon the cliche) a metaphor for the human condition. Brilliant and haunting.
August 10, 2017
All crimes must be investigated, peace time or war time.Wole Soyinka was jailed 1967-69, given copyright of this work 1972, made Nobel Prize for Lit winner 1986. I can't think off the top of my head of any Nobel Prize for Lit winner, save for Kert茅sz and Solzhenitsyn, who has a prison record, and of even fewer who have a work composed in prison to their name. However much of a supposed social justice bent people ascribe to the prize (maybe refutation of this reputation is what motivated the committee to sacrifice credibility for further white boy pandering), I could use more black winners than I've gotten, and white Africans don't count. To all intents and purposes, survival of the fittest is a factor, as I imagine some of the more original nominations (Lessing, for one) were decided upon by simply outliving the hoards of the status quo, and based what I've seen in terms of the demographics, the biographies of potential luminaries must jump an increasing number of hoops the further from the center they get. There is no health insurance on earth that can combat two years of solitary confinement and guarantee one's critical faculties continue on the path projected under less violated circumstances, so if one of your fave potentials faces incarceration, don't assume they're off Soyinka's caliber when it comes to integrity of mind, body, and soul.
Three days later, unable to accept any longer the dispensation of prison walls I began the letter to my political colleagues. I use this term in preference to the other, 'political comrades', to distinguish attitudes to situations of conflict, to distinguish those who on the one hand believe that prison鈥攖o quote this immediate situation鈥攊s some kind of hallowed ground in which an inmate must not only obey the laws of the administration but desist from any other involvement in the struggle that placed him there, conducting himself always in such a manner as would effect his early release. On the other, as comrades, those who acknowledge that prison is only a new stage from which the struggle must be waged, that prison, especially political prison is an artificial erection in more senses than one whose bluff must be called and whose impotence must be demonstrated.
Another inmate further off stares with a face full of compassion. Damn you! Damn you and all like you! Offer nothing but hatred. Hate. The pure burning flame of hate to warm you through the damp and hone your spirit to a fine weapon for survival. Not pity for the victims fool but simply, no more victims! Else simply lay down and die!Look up studies of the impact solitary confinement has on a human being. 99.9999% of the time someone says they are isolated or a loner or prefer to be alone or on the fringes or outside, this is not what they mean. They mean they are without those they consider to be of mutual esteem and worthy of camaraderie, and they do not count all those others who facilitate their access to food, shelter, sleep, clothing, emotional rapport, any means of material and mental and even spiritual well being one need not derive from someone they view as an equal, let alone as a superior. Had Soyinka not taken to fasting and tamping down the excess energy allotted to his faculties, I imagine his creative output would have suffered irredeemably without exterior reaffirmation, and we would not have the writer we have today. He's not the first to have written during and/or after a stint in prison, but unlike, say, Dostoevsky or Malory, people are less invested in critical wranglings with imprisonment, postcolonialism, dictatorship, antiblackness, and the construction of liberty written while directly impacted by such. I suppose distance renders the imprisonment less of an accusation of dehumanization and more of an event that, for whatever reason, happened and went on to shape a particular author's creative process, but is far more interesting, especially in my incarceration-happy nation and state, to consider the philosophy of the jailed, and what that necessarily means for those who are not.
[']What of all these intellectuals we hear so much about with all their pseudo-socialist jargon? We used to laugh at those phonies when I was with Nkrumah. So what happens when something anti-social happens and threatens to break up the nation. Why do we never hear them at the time of the event?'
'You won't ever hear them,' I said. 'They are enjoying the anguish of having to decide between two evils.'
I sensed a vivid contradiction in all this, a contradiction in my being, in my human self-awareness and self-definition. In fact one might say that never until this moment did that self-definition become so clear as when I viewed these chains on my ankles. The definition was a negative one, I defined myself as a being for whom chains are not, as, finally, a human being. In so far as one may say that the human essence does at times possess a tangible quality, I may say that I tasted and felt this essence within the contradiction of that moment. It was nothing new; vicariously, by ideology or from racial memory, this contradiction may be felt, is felt, with vivid sufficiency to make passionate revolutionaries of the most cosseted life. Abstract, intellectual fetters are rejected just as passionately. But in the experience of the physical thing the individual does not stand alone, most especially a black man. I had felt it, it seemed to me, hundreds of years before, as I believe I did experience the triggering of a surely re-incarnated moment when at school I first encountered engravings of slave marches in history books.I believe Soyinka when he says this was written in jail, and as such accept the flittings between social commentary to metaphysical deconstructions to invocations of Greek gods and hallucinations of evil history makers and interjections by artists and history and everyone in between. There are also Crusoe-style passages regaling tales of mechanical ingenuity, as well as anthropological detailings of anthropomorphization of the cell courtyard with its geckos and praying mantises and cats, which coming at the tail end of a horripilating record of the complete and utter breakdown of sense and self, is not as vacuously entertaining is it could have been. As it stands, I would kill for a book of essays stemming from all the topics spawned by this work, as there are myriad starting points that, once expanded upon, would make for a treasure trove of critical thought processes centering on everything from the relationship of nation state to a people to arcane mathematics acting as a weapon against systematic degradation of both sides of humanity's dualism . Individual pieces probably exist already, as it's been a long time since 1972 and I can't be the only (aspiring) academic to have engaged with this work, but until I become an official participant, I'll have an easier time finding more accessible and nicely packaged works. Still, if anyone runs across a relevant gem, be sure to hit me up.
'I have been here months. Alone. I have no books, no occupation whatever. Do you think this is good for my health?'
He thumped my chest and chuckled. 'Ho, ho. You look very healthy to me.'
'But do you think it is right? Do you think it's human?[']
What was his name, that other Wurtenburg Professor, a compatriot of Frischlin, perhaps also his contemporary? The worthy doctor who in spite of his conviction of the superstitious, untenable injustice of witch trials nevertheless prepared over two hundred successful prosecutions of witches who were duly roasted at the stake. A dichotomy of conviction and responsibility justified by seeking, in the meantime, ways and means of weaning his medieval society from its barbaric ways? So now the role of the intellectual is reduced to simply that! What exactly is the evaluation we must place on your doctorate dissertations you boneless craniums whose tomes shall undoubtedly assail us titled with variations of 'the Social Anomy of 1966, its roots and consequences in the Nigerian Civil War, etc., etc., with special reference to the role of the imperialist commercial interest, etc., etc., Two hundred witches? Two thousand? Two hundred thousand? Two million? Twenty? In presentation volumes bound in silence?This book is truly like nothing I've ever read, and the fact that it still manages to compare in terms of quality to other, more sedate and unconstrained fiction and non, academic and otherwise, genres is a marvel in and of itself. My hesitation to award the maximum number of stars lies in my own ignorance of the intricacies of the Nigerian Civil War, as well as a moment of anti-Asian sentiment that is out of place in a mind, that otherwise is well aware of the complexities of a colonial ghost which pits one non-white demographic against another. In any case, I still wish to see Soyinka become far more popular on the shelves of both GR friends and none as befits his much lauded status, lest time passes by and the committee acts again out of misguided isolation and entertains their audience instead of enlightening them. There's enough concrete failure in the world as is without adding creative failure to the morass.
For the truly independent thinker it is always easy鈥攁nd often relevant鈥攖o recall the artificiality, the cavalier arrogance, the exploit[at]ive motivations which went into the disposal of African peoples into nationalities. One overcomes the sense of humiliation which accompanies the recollection of such a genesis by establishing his essential identity as that which goes into creating the entity of a people. I cannot see that essence as part of the entity of boundaries. Judgment can only be applied to peoples, judgment that is, in its basic ethical sense can be applied only to peoples; loyalty, sacrifice, idealism, even ideologies are virtues which are nurture and exercised on behalf of peoples. And any exercise of self-decimation solely in defen[s]e of the inviolability of temporal demarcations called nations is a mindless travesty of idealism. Peoples are not temporal because they can be defined by infinite ideas. Boundaries cannot.
It is easy you know. If you see misery long enough you grow to despise it. So what was that about? What was it that came out of them? You don't know, you weren't within this sound chamber with them. The whole thing...it was like being tortured. It was hurting me and yet it was...I don't know. You people are the writers. If you can't...Strength, that was it. Strength. It had such strength you know. It gave me strength, even while it hurt me. I have never been through a night like that, never in my life.
To the pragmatists who like to point out鈥攓uite untruthfully by the way, but let that pass鈥攖hat in spite of all General Gowon did win the war there is only one answer and it contains a warning: so did General Franco.
June 1, 2017
It is bizarre to think that a distinguished, world class literary pearl like Soyinka spent years clamped in gaol. But then again, so did other African literary giants like Kofi Awoonor (Ghana), Ngugi (Kenya), Jack Mapanje (Malawi) Mongani Wally Serote (SA) among others.
At least Soyinka鈥檚 incarceration resulted in this extraordinary book, a work so brilliant that it necessarily invites all sorts of superlatives. The full range of Soyinka鈥檚 literary talent and nous is explored in this work, with his patent intellectualism augmenting this memoir 鈥� a memoir that one can read over and over again with multiple rewards. Soyinka never hides his disgust and disdain for certain tendencies and personalities, and there are many instances here,
perhaps including the 鈥渄amned casuistic functionaire鈥�. The author鈥檚 innate imagination and creativity is 鈥済athered, stirred, skimmed and sieved鈥� (to purloin his own expression here) during his travails behind the bars.
Soyinka has always been a cerebral, metaphorical poet and legions of pertinent examples abound in this work. Memorably, the hapless soul who emits 鈥減orcine sounds鈥� whilst cleansing his throat/expectorating early every day: regurgitating mortar and slag and dung plaster...do you?鈥�
April 17, 2012
鈥淭he man dies in him who keeps quiet in the face of injustice.鈥� That's my favorite quotation from this well documented piece which focuses on the prison experience of Wole Soyinka
October 10, 2007
The thing that sticks in my mind most about this book is this: In solitary confinement, living with the knowledge that he could be summarily executed at any moment, preserving his sanity by writing his thoughts down on toilet paper with homemade pens and ink, he devotes something like three typewritten pages to how much he hates oranges. This is totally peripheral to what is undoubtedly a great book, but that's what sticks in my mind. I definitely need to read more of his writing.
Read
April 3, 2008"In the beginning there was Void. Nothing. And how does the mind grasp it? A waste? Desolation? Nothing is cheaply within grasp from what was. But as the fundamental nought, the positive, original nil? As the immeasurable drop into pre-though, pre-existence, pre-essence? But then, the mind that will conceive this must empty inwards from a lifetime's frame of accumulated references, must plunge from the physical platform into the primordial abyss. Within which alas, lie the creative energies which 'abhor a vacuum' even more than Nature. The cycle must commence again.
Still, there being nothing worse to do, Pluto tried to discover tunnels even from the dead netherworld into deeper bowels of Void. at the best, it was mesmeric: the mind's normal functioning seized up, the day eased out in a gentle catalepsis. At worst it lay within the darkest ring of recreative energies, revolving on its axis, turning on its spoor in the gossamer dust of infinity . . .
Which existed and had always been--Life, that is, which God did say Let There Be. Why? For it had always been within his protean mind, within form that was not formed, motion that did not move, time and space which existed not, yet were all severally and wholly contained, rolled and moulded within that great amorphous origin, pulse, breath, androgynous source of matter and of essence. Until, suffering, I do not seek, I find--he delved within and ordered: let there Be! Tangibly, visibly, olfactorily, audibly . . .
What, then, what was this need to materialize in poor second-mould copy such merely outward manifestations of the pure Idea! Why break the invisible chrysalis of essense, the one unassailable Truth. Truth, because there was no copy, no duplicate, no faulted cast, not even a bare projection from an alien mind of that pure idea? For there were no other minds. No faker. What was this need to turn materialist? Uncertainty? Ego? Narcissism? Reassurance? Loneliness, said the Holy Wrist. A fear that thought was Nothing, and a fear of Nothing which could only be allayed by the thought made manifest.
When at first the pigeons came, Pluto held their arabesques of wing-bolts high in the air, burning as incandescent tracers long after their creators had departed. Yet, fearful for when the seasons might change and the pigeons migrate and come no more he moved at once to wean the mind from dependence on such fortuitous aesthetics. A stone lay on the ground, worn smooth and oval shaped, subtly creviced as if by human hands, faintly reminiscent of a shuttle. Inert, yet he imbued it with the tapestry of fates, of seasons, pierced to the core and crowded its infinite lethargy with infinite creativity, coming away from that stone with only its pure luminous essence. For finally the loops and arcs of the pigeons did disintegrate, the quicker for being witnessed being only an activity in Time. The feather designs did crumble and lose their formal rhythms, falling back to earth in showering sparkles. And it rendered the Crypt darker than before.
Not to create or think is best. The pauses leave the Crypt a little darker than before. Creation is an admission of great loneliness. Turn the mind in a loom of cobwebs, rest the time-smoothed shuttle in its home of timelessness.
I need nothing. I seek nothing. I desire nothing.
Not even loneliness. A mess known as the world was created to cheat loneliness and the one pure essence. So witnesseth the Holy Writ, faking it a virtue."
*the sunflowers that grew outside of his window. Collecting the pollen to make a bar of gold.
*inventing mathematical formulas/mobiles/wind tunnel.
*the story behind "the man died"
". . . I denied recognition even to the presence of women in the streets as we drove through, denied that my body had made physical breach of the prison walls. Submitting at last to public pressure in this one respect, the graceless men might seek revenge in other ways for the one surrender. My outing therefore remained an ambiguous omen. I refused to take pleasure in the sensation of breathing a less restricted air.
Until the rains crashed through the barrier of insulation. An exhilarating storm, it penetrated all defences physical and mental, crushed the capsule to release the wild sweet scent of liberty. I gave into it, turning it to the strength of a thousand combative resolves that rushed out one after the other. Soaked to the skin, lashed by wind and rain as we fled through the long unprotected corridors of the hospital I was struck suddenly by the phenomena of these wild, free yet governed motions of the elements and us, and its contrast was that first death march into an artificial tomb. And, with the gaunt figure of Polyphemus racing far ahead of us, clutching his robes to him in a losing battle with the wind, I experienced a conviction as sharp and certain as the pessimist intuition of the turn of the year only, this time, in a positive revelation. It had to do with liberty but not with the gaining of it. It was a passionate affirmation of the free spirit, a knowledge that because of this love, my adversaries had lost the conflict. That it did not matter in the end for how long they manouevred to keep my body behind walls, they would not, ultimately, escape the fate of the defeated. At the hands of all who are allied and committed to the unfettered principle of life.
Still, there being nothing worse to do, Pluto tried to discover tunnels even from the dead netherworld into deeper bowels of Void. at the best, it was mesmeric: the mind's normal functioning seized up, the day eased out in a gentle catalepsis. At worst it lay within the darkest ring of recreative energies, revolving on its axis, turning on its spoor in the gossamer dust of infinity . . .
Which existed and had always been--Life, that is, which God did say Let There Be. Why? For it had always been within his protean mind, within form that was not formed, motion that did not move, time and space which existed not, yet were all severally and wholly contained, rolled and moulded within that great amorphous origin, pulse, breath, androgynous source of matter and of essence. Until, suffering, I do not seek, I find--he delved within and ordered: let there Be! Tangibly, visibly, olfactorily, audibly . . .
What, then, what was this need to materialize in poor second-mould copy such merely outward manifestations of the pure Idea! Why break the invisible chrysalis of essense, the one unassailable Truth. Truth, because there was no copy, no duplicate, no faulted cast, not even a bare projection from an alien mind of that pure idea? For there were no other minds. No faker. What was this need to turn materialist? Uncertainty? Ego? Narcissism? Reassurance? Loneliness, said the Holy Wrist. A fear that thought was Nothing, and a fear of Nothing which could only be allayed by the thought made manifest.
When at first the pigeons came, Pluto held their arabesques of wing-bolts high in the air, burning as incandescent tracers long after their creators had departed. Yet, fearful for when the seasons might change and the pigeons migrate and come no more he moved at once to wean the mind from dependence on such fortuitous aesthetics. A stone lay on the ground, worn smooth and oval shaped, subtly creviced as if by human hands, faintly reminiscent of a shuttle. Inert, yet he imbued it with the tapestry of fates, of seasons, pierced to the core and crowded its infinite lethargy with infinite creativity, coming away from that stone with only its pure luminous essence. For finally the loops and arcs of the pigeons did disintegrate, the quicker for being witnessed being only an activity in Time. The feather designs did crumble and lose their formal rhythms, falling back to earth in showering sparkles. And it rendered the Crypt darker than before.
Not to create or think is best. The pauses leave the Crypt a little darker than before. Creation is an admission of great loneliness. Turn the mind in a loom of cobwebs, rest the time-smoothed shuttle in its home of timelessness.
I need nothing. I seek nothing. I desire nothing.
Not even loneliness. A mess known as the world was created to cheat loneliness and the one pure essence. So witnesseth the Holy Writ, faking it a virtue."
*the sunflowers that grew outside of his window. Collecting the pollen to make a bar of gold.
*inventing mathematical formulas/mobiles/wind tunnel.
*the story behind "the man died"
". . . I denied recognition even to the presence of women in the streets as we drove through, denied that my body had made physical breach of the prison walls. Submitting at last to public pressure in this one respect, the graceless men might seek revenge in other ways for the one surrender. My outing therefore remained an ambiguous omen. I refused to take pleasure in the sensation of breathing a less restricted air.
Until the rains crashed through the barrier of insulation. An exhilarating storm, it penetrated all defences physical and mental, crushed the capsule to release the wild sweet scent of liberty. I gave into it, turning it to the strength of a thousand combative resolves that rushed out one after the other. Soaked to the skin, lashed by wind and rain as we fled through the long unprotected corridors of the hospital I was struck suddenly by the phenomena of these wild, free yet governed motions of the elements and us, and its contrast was that first death march into an artificial tomb. And, with the gaunt figure of Polyphemus racing far ahead of us, clutching his robes to him in a losing battle with the wind, I experienced a conviction as sharp and certain as the pessimist intuition of the turn of the year only, this time, in a positive revelation. It had to do with liberty but not with the gaining of it. It was a passionate affirmation of the free spirit, a knowledge that because of this love, my adversaries had lost the conflict. That it did not matter in the end for how long they manouevred to keep my body behind walls, they would not, ultimately, escape the fate of the defeated. At the hands of all who are allied and committed to the unfettered principle of life.
September 30, 2016
A magnificent memoir, stunning and intellectual. What one would expect from one of the greatest ever writers in the world. Yet with dollops of humour, somehow
November 1, 2017
鬲賵賯毓鬲 兀賰孬乇 賲賳 匕賱賰
丕賱賰鬲丕亘 匕丕鬲賷 亘毓囟 丕賱卮賷亍 賵賲賲賱 丕丨賷丕賳丕
丕賱賰鬲丕亘 匕丕鬲賷 亘毓囟 丕賱卮賷亍 賵賲賲賱 丕丨賷丕賳丕
March 25, 2009
The Man Died is an intimidating book, and an excellent one. I was most impressed by the sensory detail Soyinka records. His prison experience - I suspect the same is true for other prisoners, but I don't know - leaves him with nothing but sensory details to record. So it's extremely powerful, especially when he is fasting. (He goes a little crazy.) I've only read Death and the King's Horseman and some articles, so I can't really compare with his other work, but this was easiyl the most impressive thing I've read by Soyinka so far.
However, for someone who isn't a great student of history or somewhat lacking in dates and names and things, an annotated version of The Man Died would be much better reading. I definitely didn't catch all the allusions and I would have liked to. But there probably isn't an annotated version out yet.
However, for someone who isn't a great student of history or somewhat lacking in dates and names and things, an annotated version of The Man Died would be much better reading. I definitely didn't catch all the allusions and I would have liked to. But there probably isn't an annotated version out yet.
February 20, 2019
this book made me want to read more about the nigerian civil war because i hadn't realised just how violent it was and some of the glimpses of the complexity of the situation here are fascinating. also fascinating is his account of being in solitary confinement, how his mind started to break down and respond to the situation, and the digressions about what it means to be imprisoned, why people are imprisoned, etc.
September 28, 2016
Wole Soyinka.. The man died..
A rich experience of highly human level. You understand what kind of man is Soyinka through his struggling to maintain his humanity above all.
The book is an essay, poetry, a diary of a political prisoner, a man aiming wholly to liberty and freedom.. His struggle is of very noble humanity and it s worth reviving it and living it through the book!
A rich experience of highly human level. You understand what kind of man is Soyinka through his struggling to maintain his humanity above all.
The book is an essay, poetry, a diary of a political prisoner, a man aiming wholly to liberty and freedom.. His struggle is of very noble humanity and it s worth reviving it and living it through the book!
December 26, 2016
丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 亘胤賱賴丕 丕賱賰丕鬲亘 賳賮爻賴, 賵賵賱 爻賵賷賳賰丕. 丕賱爻噩賷賳 丕賱匕賷 賱胤丕賱賲丕 賰丕賳 賷丨賱賲 亘丕賱丨乇賷丞 賵鬲丨乇賷乇 賵胤賳賴 賲賳 丕賱賲爻鬲毓賲乇 賵丕賱噩賴賱. 丨賷孬 賷爻乇丿 亘丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 鬲賮丕氐賷賱 丕賱丕毓鬲賯丕賱 賵賲丕 丨丿孬 兀孬賳丕亍 賮鬲乇丞 丕賱爻噩賳 賲賳 賲卮丕賰賱 賵氐乇丕毓丕鬲.
丕賱毓賲賱 賵廿賳 賰丕賳 卮亘賷賴 亘丕賱賲匕賰乇丕鬲 丕賱卮禺氐賷丞 賱賰賳賴 亘氐賵乇丞 兀毓賲賯 賵兀賵爻毓 賱丕 賷禺氐 爻賵賷賳賰丕 賵丨丿賴. 亘賱 兀賮乇賷賯賷丕 賰賱賴丕.
丕賱毓賲賱 賵廿賳 賰丕賳 卮亘賷賴 亘丕賱賲匕賰乇丕鬲 丕賱卮禺氐賷丞 賱賰賳賴 亘氐賵乇丞 兀毓賲賯 賵兀賵爻毓 賱丕 賷禺氐 爻賵賷賳賰丕 賵丨丿賴. 亘賱 兀賮乇賷賯賷丕 賰賱賴丕.
August 25, 2018
forse dovrei leggerlo in lingua originale, in molti punti ho avuto la sensazione che la traduzione non centrasse molto il senso delle frasi... boh... dovrei ricorrere all'originale o ad un'altra versione per esserne certa
June 13, 2010
A humbling experience for me. May we never be ignorant of past sacrifices made on our behalf.
Read
August 6, 2011the bracketing of existence is at its summit in this book. one of my best
September 23, 2017
All too real.
A letter to Compatriots...
The author of this letter is a professor in Greece, George Mangakis, a present a captive of fascist dictators.* I quote some passages from his letter to reinforce certain very simple truths of a prisoner's precarious existence in isolation. It seems to me that testimonies such as this should become a kind of chain-letter hung permanently on the leaden conscience of the world. To defeat, to uproot in entirety any concepts of and pretension to a mitigating base for inflicting atrocities on the human mind, it is essential that the extent of this unnatural strain be fully grasped. After that, there can be no pleases, no arguments. Each individual will make a simple act of choice -- do I say yes to this or no?
* George Mangakis is now at liberty.
"Among so many other things, the anguish of being in prison is also a deep need to communicate with one's fellow human beings. It is a need that suffocates one, at times.
Self-defence. That is why I write. That is how I manage to keep my mind under control. If I let it loose, unsupported by the frame of written thought, it goes wild. It takes strange sinister byways, and ends up by begetting monsters.
... we need somebody else's mind in order to keep on working terms with own own. We also need moments devoid of thought."
The man dies in a ll who keep silent in the face of tyranny.
George Mangakis writes:
"When a dictatorship is imposed upon your country, the very first thing
you feel, the very first day, is humiliation. You are being deprived of the
right to consider yourself worthy of responsibility for your own life and
destiny. This feeling of humiliation grows day by day as a result of the
oppressors鈥� unceasing effort to force your mind to accept all the
vulgarity which makes up the abortive mental world of dictators. You
feel as if your reason and your human status were being deeply insulted
every day. And then comes the attempt to impose on you, by fear,
acceptance of their various barbarous actions鈥揵oth those that you hear
about and those that you actually see them commit against your fellow
human beings. You begin to live with the daily humiliation of fear, and
you begin to loathe yourself. And then, deeply wounded in your
conscience as a citizen, you begin to feel a solidarity with the people to
whom you belong. With a unique immediacy, you feel indivisibly bound
to them and jointly responsible for their future fate."
In any people that submit willingly to the 'daily humiliation of fear,' the man dies. - 14 Dec 1971
The nation was humiliated by a treason promoted, sustained, and accentuated by forces that lacked purpose or ideology beyond self-perpetuation through organized terror, the failure to:
"acquire an extraordinary historic acuity of vision and see with total clarity that humiliated national are inevitably led either to a lethal decadence, a moral and spiritual withering, or to a passion for revenge, which results in bloodshed and upheaval." - Mangakis
A beginning must be made somewhere, so let it be made by us in the West.
David Astor on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising are very simply to the point:
"We must learn more of the fatal, fearful process of thought which makes people feel not only justified, but that they have a duty to destroy others. We cannot tell what may excite this process of mass psychology. Its next form may not be racial or religious but political (as has happened before in times of revolution or civil war..."
This book is not a textbook for survival but the private record of one survival. And perhaps at the least it will refresh the world conscience on the continuing existence of the thousands of souls held under perverted power whose survival necessitates the self-infusion of inhuman acts.
"Let us say simply that I disapprove of power prostitutes."
I hear a fresh wind coming up from beyond the boundaries of expediency.
Listen to what Adolfe Joffe wrote to Trotsky before his death by suicide. "Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity. For me humanity is infinite.
For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.
The mind is time -- and on that flash he rested now the problem of Infinity at last. The mind is the sole coefficient of time and space.
A letter to Compatriots...
The author of this letter is a professor in Greece, George Mangakis, a present a captive of fascist dictators.* I quote some passages from his letter to reinforce certain very simple truths of a prisoner's precarious existence in isolation. It seems to me that testimonies such as this should become a kind of chain-letter hung permanently on the leaden conscience of the world. To defeat, to uproot in entirety any concepts of and pretension to a mitigating base for inflicting atrocities on the human mind, it is essential that the extent of this unnatural strain be fully grasped. After that, there can be no pleases, no arguments. Each individual will make a simple act of choice -- do I say yes to this or no?
* George Mangakis is now at liberty.
"Among so many other things, the anguish of being in prison is also a deep need to communicate with one's fellow human beings. It is a need that suffocates one, at times.
Self-defence. That is why I write. That is how I manage to keep my mind under control. If I let it loose, unsupported by the frame of written thought, it goes wild. It takes strange sinister byways, and ends up by begetting monsters.
... we need somebody else's mind in order to keep on working terms with own own. We also need moments devoid of thought."
The man dies in a ll who keep silent in the face of tyranny.
George Mangakis writes:
"When a dictatorship is imposed upon your country, the very first thing
you feel, the very first day, is humiliation. You are being deprived of the
right to consider yourself worthy of responsibility for your own life and
destiny. This feeling of humiliation grows day by day as a result of the
oppressors鈥� unceasing effort to force your mind to accept all the
vulgarity which makes up the abortive mental world of dictators. You
feel as if your reason and your human status were being deeply insulted
every day. And then comes the attempt to impose on you, by fear,
acceptance of their various barbarous actions鈥揵oth those that you hear
about and those that you actually see them commit against your fellow
human beings. You begin to live with the daily humiliation of fear, and
you begin to loathe yourself. And then, deeply wounded in your
conscience as a citizen, you begin to feel a solidarity with the people to
whom you belong. With a unique immediacy, you feel indivisibly bound
to them and jointly responsible for their future fate."
In any people that submit willingly to the 'daily humiliation of fear,' the man dies. - 14 Dec 1971
The nation was humiliated by a treason promoted, sustained, and accentuated by forces that lacked purpose or ideology beyond self-perpetuation through organized terror, the failure to:
"acquire an extraordinary historic acuity of vision and see with total clarity that humiliated national are inevitably led either to a lethal decadence, a moral and spiritual withering, or to a passion for revenge, which results in bloodshed and upheaval." - Mangakis
A beginning must be made somewhere, so let it be made by us in the West.
David Astor on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising are very simply to the point:
"We must learn more of the fatal, fearful process of thought which makes people feel not only justified, but that they have a duty to destroy others. We cannot tell what may excite this process of mass psychology. Its next form may not be racial or religious but political (as has happened before in times of revolution or civil war..."
This book is not a textbook for survival but the private record of one survival. And perhaps at the least it will refresh the world conscience on the continuing existence of the thousands of souls held under perverted power whose survival necessitates the self-infusion of inhuman acts.
"Let us say simply that I disapprove of power prostitutes."
I hear a fresh wind coming up from beyond the boundaries of expediency.
Listen to what Adolfe Joffe wrote to Trotsky before his death by suicide. "Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity. For me humanity is infinite.
For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.
The mind is time -- and on that flash he rested now the problem of Infinity at last. The mind is the sole coefficient of time and space.
March 22, 2017
As a Nigerian I have observed that very few public figures write or talk about their experience or views on the Nigerian civil war (a.k.a Biafra war) and the tyranny of the military regime, a scar in the history of the nation and an indelible memory in the mind of some Nigerians.
The Man Died; Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka I think is a personal and political entanglement of Soyinka in pursuit of what he considered to be a just course for the nation as an activist on the verge of the civil war, and subsequently events prior to, during and after his arrest and imprisonment.
From a historical perspective, through the page of the book one travels back in time in the mind of Soyinka as he tried to make sense and act upon unfolding events in a nation on the brink of civil war.
Like a Philosopher, in the confines of his prison walls his mind is constantly riddled with matters of; Justice, Power(tyranny of the State), Divine Providence, etc.
"The act of being a prisoner is in itself not even a process but an instant metamorphosis" the instantaneous metamorphosis in the life of Soyinka is seen through the pages of the book.
I just love this quote from the book and I feel like sharing it. "THOSE WHO MAKE PEACEFUL CHANGE IMPOSSIBLE MAKE VIOLENT CHANGE INEVITABLE"
Above all, I think the book is really worth reading particularly for Nigerians given how informative, engaging and poetic it is.
The Man Died; Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka I think is a personal and political entanglement of Soyinka in pursuit of what he considered to be a just course for the nation as an activist on the verge of the civil war, and subsequently events prior to, during and after his arrest and imprisonment.
From a historical perspective, through the page of the book one travels back in time in the mind of Soyinka as he tried to make sense and act upon unfolding events in a nation on the brink of civil war.
Like a Philosopher, in the confines of his prison walls his mind is constantly riddled with matters of; Justice, Power(tyranny of the State), Divine Providence, etc.
"The act of being a prisoner is in itself not even a process but an instant metamorphosis" the instantaneous metamorphosis in the life of Soyinka is seen through the pages of the book.
I just love this quote from the book and I feel like sharing it. "THOSE WHO MAKE PEACEFUL CHANGE IMPOSSIBLE MAKE VIOLENT CHANGE INEVITABLE"
Above all, I think the book is really worth reading particularly for Nigerians given how informative, engaging and poetic it is.
September 25, 2018
I think I would have appreciated this book a lot more if I had known more about the conflict or was alive at the time this was published and I had maybe been hearing about it in the news. As it stands there's very little context given within the book itself and so I found myself getting lost in acronyms and remembering who was on what side. Soyinka also writes with a very academic vocabulary. This was fine for most of the book but when he would go on philosophical or political tangents I had to really focus and even then sometimes felt like I hadn't really grasped the full meaning.
A general audience will still be able to read the more novel-esque parts of the book with dialogue and things happening, but the dense chapters where he delves into certain topics can be tough. Not necessarily a book written for the public at large.
A general audience will still be able to read the more novel-esque parts of the book with dialogue and things happening, but the dense chapters where he delves into certain topics can be tough. Not necessarily a book written for the public at large.
October 2, 2017
Soyinka's brilliant prison notes delve into the psychology of solitary confinement and the effects it has on the mind, body and soul. Soyinka's simple yearning for something to read is heartwarming coming from a fellow bookworm.
Some of my favourite parts are the rather bizarre moments of insanity that will run through a mind confined to itself; a 3-page rant about his hatred of oranges, a probing into ideas about time and infinity, and others.
This book is not just for those interested in the events of Nigeria and its brutal civil war in the 60's but to those interested in the internal machinations of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century running wild in itself.
Some of my favourite parts are the rather bizarre moments of insanity that will run through a mind confined to itself; a 3-page rant about his hatred of oranges, a probing into ideas about time and infinity, and others.
This book is not just for those interested in the events of Nigeria and its brutal civil war in the 60's but to those interested in the internal machinations of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century running wild in itself.
Want to read
March 16, 2012In introductory notes to Soyinka essay "Why Do I Fast?" in, editor Phillip Lopate mentions this memoir. The essay, about S's experience fasting in protest of his imprisonment, was so good that I'm eager to read more by him.
October 29, 2007
"The thing that sticks in my mind most about this book is this: In solitary confinement
July 24, 2016
Much better second time around, even with a couple of chapters missing.
March 14, 2020
Wole Soyinka recount his incarceration by the Nigeria Government. The book exposes one to the viciousness of the military government during that time.
June 22, 2019
Fantastic piece of English writing. I'm in awe of Wole's effortless handling of language and how his descriptions stretch the imagination.
May 21, 2024
This was a tough read. Couldn't really get into the flow of the writing.
January 30, 2021
In no work of his, perhaps, does the perennial charge of Wole Soyinka's literary critics - wilful obscurantism - against his writing find pertinent justification (beyond reasonable doubts, that is - other than the one the book itself contrives in the mind of the reader about, well, everything) than in his prison notes: "The Man Died". The volume is such a frustrating read and poses a rather veritable uphill challenge in the comprehension of its basic thrust; lacking, as it does, a coherent plot but working instead as a loose stringing of several interconnected plots that congregate around a single theme. And even this seeming thematic monolith is ably served by one or two subthemes - which are not named, but which shine forth in the work nevertheless. The severe tasks this state of affairs subjects the reader to is better imagined (except, of course, you take the plunge yourself).
Yet, all the foregoing charges - which ought to work as serious indictments, if not of the creative craft of the author, at least of the particular product under review - serve rather to underscore both his inimitable mastery of the dialectic of narrative (such that he could jettison most of its conventions without blinking, nor impairing his work in the process) and the poignancy of his message in that piece, which his disregard of the established canons of writing narrative seem to imprint in bold type (while yet providing a subliminal message that an over-adherence to rules and forms arrived at in a another society with a completely different sociopolitical dialectic may in fact prove the tools of subjugation, rather than liberation, in the existential struggle Nigeria had found itself immersed in since Independence).
The work goes further to fashion out pearls of literary idiom both from the experience related, and the manner in which the relation is put across. For if nothing else, the story is in the telling, and the real storyteller is not the one with the story but the one who tells it best. Little wonder the historian and the journalist on one hand are assigned a separate identity from the storytellers - novelists, dramatists and film-makers - even if some individuals manage to excel in both spheres, as Wole Soyinka does in the work under review.
Let me end this very short review (deliberately devoid of spoilers - except that I will admit that took me about seven years to wade through that slim volume, finding always that I had to return to the beginning after making a tenuous advance in some part of the narrative) by advising the prospective reader to avoid my pitfall (which may be summarised as "wanting to get the book in its entirety in the first reading) and instead concentrate in his/her first pass through the book on mapping the landscape of the narrative, noting the remarkable landmarks and natural features it presents to view. This would help to fix ones bearings in subsequent forays.
It migh also help to have a brief overview of the history of events in Nigeria between 1959 and 1971 because the writing of "The Man Died" presupposes that knowledge (and a lot more, including a superlative acquaintance with the vocabulary of the native English speaker admixed with the street savvy of a Southern Nigerian of the 196os!)
Yet, all the foregoing charges - which ought to work as serious indictments, if not of the creative craft of the author, at least of the particular product under review - serve rather to underscore both his inimitable mastery of the dialectic of narrative (such that he could jettison most of its conventions without blinking, nor impairing his work in the process) and the poignancy of his message in that piece, which his disregard of the established canons of writing narrative seem to imprint in bold type (while yet providing a subliminal message that an over-adherence to rules and forms arrived at in a another society with a completely different sociopolitical dialectic may in fact prove the tools of subjugation, rather than liberation, in the existential struggle Nigeria had found itself immersed in since Independence).
The work goes further to fashion out pearls of literary idiom both from the experience related, and the manner in which the relation is put across. For if nothing else, the story is in the telling, and the real storyteller is not the one with the story but the one who tells it best. Little wonder the historian and the journalist on one hand are assigned a separate identity from the storytellers - novelists, dramatists and film-makers - even if some individuals manage to excel in both spheres, as Wole Soyinka does in the work under review.
Let me end this very short review (deliberately devoid of spoilers - except that I will admit that took me about seven years to wade through that slim volume, finding always that I had to return to the beginning after making a tenuous advance in some part of the narrative) by advising the prospective reader to avoid my pitfall (which may be summarised as "wanting to get the book in its entirety in the first reading) and instead concentrate in his/her first pass through the book on mapping the landscape of the narrative, noting the remarkable landmarks and natural features it presents to view. This would help to fix ones bearings in subsequent forays.
It migh also help to have a brief overview of the history of events in Nigeria between 1959 and 1971 because the writing of "The Man Died" presupposes that knowledge (and a lot more, including a superlative acquaintance with the vocabulary of the native English speaker admixed with the street savvy of a Southern Nigerian of the 196os!)
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