You must set forth at dawn : a memoir

553 Pages·2006·3.05 MB·English

by  Soyinka

Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Praise
Chronology
IBA— For Those Who Went Before
PART I - Ogun and I
Early Intimations
Reunion with Ogun
First Skirmishes
PART II - Ogun, Less Benign
Uncivil Wars: The Third Force and the Midwest Incursion
A Moment of Truth —and the Lies of History
The Conquest of Civilian Pride
PART III - Interlude to a Friendship
Interlude to a Friendship
PART IV - Dining with the Devil—and an Avatar
Olori-Kunkun and Ori Olokun
The “Evil Genius”
A Pen Coalition
Dinner with an Avatar
PART V - All the World . . .
Night We Improvise
From Ghetto to Garrison
PART VI - Bernard Shaw Was Right!
How the News Came to Me
Thorns in the Crown
Stockholm and Back
Three Lost Years
PART VII - Nation and Exile
The Road to Exile
By the Waters of Babylon
Diplomatic Recruit
Requiem for an Ecowarrior
Arms and the Man
A Final Mission
PART VIII - Homecoming
An Interim Welcome—Official
Where the Earth Says Welcome!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By Wole Soyinka
Copyright Page
To all the fallen in our common cause,
and to the surviving, scars and all, clamorous or hidden.
To all my stoically resigned children.
And to my wife, Adefolake, who, during the
season of a deadly dictatorship, demoted me
from the designation of Visiting Professor to that
of Visiting Spouse, but was still left with only an
Invisible Spouse as I was swallowed by
my study even during visiting hours.
Praise for You Must Set Forth at Dawn
“[A] sprawling, delightful memoir... As a chronicle of modern Africa and its
troubles from the continent’s foremost literary giant, You Must Set Forth at
Dawn triumphs.” —The Washington Post
“You Must Set Forth at Dawn is more than just the journey of a remarkable and
controversial man through the backdrop of the controversial country he loves so
much. It is not merely an important book. This is a book that must exist.” —San
Francisco Chronicle
“The fine detail of [Soyinka’s] oppositional activity, involving clandestine
border crossings, strange bedfellows and secret diplomatic missions, is presented
here for the first time. Adding it up, one wants to set him in the right company.
Victor Hugo, Yeats, Byron and Alessandro Manzoni all come to mind.” —The
New York Times Book Review
“Wole Soyinka is a titan.... Playwright and poet, novelist and pamphleteer, editor
and auto-biographer, cultural impresario and unofficial diplomat, democratic
conspirator and ferocious, unappeasable warrior for justice, he has earned his
Nobel Prize many times over.” —The New York Review of Books
“Captivating . . . You Must Set Forth at Dawn is much more than a memoir. . . .
Soyinka’s most powerful weapon has always been the eloquence of his voice as
a writer.... [Soyinka’s art] will outlive both him and the regimes he opposed.”
—The Nation
“Profoundly rewarding . . . the synthesis of a wealth of ancient myths and
traditions with the best of humanism and modernity, addressing the drama that is
not only the author’s life but Africa’s contemporary reality.” — WQ: The Wilson
Quarterly
“Humane, sensible and impeccably written; a fitting summation of a life
interestingly lived.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Engrossing... His lyrical evocations of African landscapes, the urban nightmare
of Lagos, the horrors of British cuisine and the longing a dusty fugitive feels for
a cold beer will entertain and educate readers.” — Publishers Weekly (starred
review) “A must for anyone concerned with human rights and the global web of
oil, poverty, and corruption.” —Booklist