Next in my reading of books by winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature who were not white men, this is the first of them who is still alive: Wole Soyinka was born in western Nigeria in 1934, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1986, at 52 on the younger side of laureates. (The proper Yoruba spelling is Wọlé Sóyinká but he seems to have dropped the diacritics for his publications.) His Nobel lecture is a powerful condemnation of racism and apartheid in particular, with a tribute to Sweden’s recently assassinated prime minister Olof Palme. His short and witty banquet speech makes a connection between the Yoruba god of destruction, Ogun, and the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel.
He is best known for his drama and poetry rather than novels, and his top book on both LibraryThing and Goodreads is this short play, Death and the King’s Horseman, set in colonial Nigeria. The opening of its third scene is:
A swelling, agitated hum of women’s voices rises immediately in the background. The lights come on and we see the frontage of a converted cloth stall in the market. The floor leading up to the entrance is covered in rich velvets and woven cloth. The women come on stage, borne backwards by the determined progress of Sergeant AMUSA and his two constables who already have their batons out and use them as a pressure against the women. At the edge of the cloth-covered floor however the women take a determined stand and block all further progress of the men. They begin to tease them mercilessly.
AMUSA: I am tell you women for last time to commot my road. I am here on official business.
WOMAN: Official business you white man’s eunuch? Official business is taking place where you want to go and it’s a business you wouldn’t understand.
You can watch it here:
It’s a frankly disturbing piece about the white folks’ attempts to interfere with a ritual suicide, full of disruption and questioning of civilisational values. A number of the characters do not have names but are identified by their function (including a visiting British royal). I found it sympathetic but not necessarily sentimental to Nigerian (well, Yoruba) culture, and slyly holding a mirror up to the British (who also indulge in quaint ritual around the royal visit). The ending is powerful.
In general I find it difficult to read play scripts without a sense of how the piece would look on stage, but this is vivid and conveys a lot with text. It would no doubt convey even more on stage.
You can get Death and the King’s Horseman here.
Next in my list of Nobel Prize winners is Naguib Mahfouz.
