Nigerian Nobel Laureate and writer, Wole Soyinka says his latest book, ‘Chronicles of the Land of the Happiest People on Earth’, his first novel in over four decades, is an irony to the reality of present-day Nigeria.
The book was published this month and is the third after The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973).
Some of his plays like The Lion and the Jewel and The Trials of Brother Jero have been an academic staple for literature learning in Uganda and across Africa.
His new novel centers on an imaginary Nigeria where a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr. Menka’s hospital for use in ritualistic practices.
Dr. Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne—the life of every party— who is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York. It now seems that someone is determined that he not make it there. Neither Dr. Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, how powerful.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a literary hoot, a crafty whodunit, and a scathing indictment of Nigeria’s political elite. It is a stirring call to arms against the abuse of power from one of that country’s fiercest political activists, who just happens to be a global literary giant.
On why now, after 48 years of not writing, Soyinka told CNN the book is a collection of thoughts he has been pondering upon.
“Things have been happening. I grew up in this society with visions, dreams and ambitions being degraded in our society and on the continent. Things reached such a stage that only I found intuitively that only prose fiction could handle things that have been bubbling up inside me,” said the writer.
The first African to be a Nobel Laureate in Literature (1986) explains that Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a deliberate ironic title but one that came from reality, making reference to a poll (2011 Gallup survey) in which Nigeria was found to be among the top 4 happiest nations in the world.
“I said who are these people? What do they know, what have they seen in Nigeria, that they make such an attribution? So that claim had been waiting to be answered in many ways. When you look at the surrounding, everything is the opposite,” Soyinka told CNN.
Asked why he has chosen to settle in a country muddled with all this mess, he says it is an attempt to contribute to changing things.
“That’s where I was born and that turf of earth belongs to me no matter how miniscule. I insist on exploiting it (Nigeria) and letting it nourish me, and at the same time contributing what I can to ameliorating the deterioration which constantly markers arounds oneself. I see nations as humanity and not nations in abstract.”
This year, Tanzanian-born novelist, Abdulrazak Gurnah, became the second black African Nobel Laureate for literature after Soyika, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism”.
Soyinka says Gurnah’s recognition is welcome and symbolizes expansion of the African tribe. Though, he warned him to brace for the “misery” that comes with this global recognition.
To Gurnah, Soyinka said “Welcome to the club. You are about to go through that misery aspect of this strange recognition which seems to exercise people all kinds of strange, abnormal ways. This is what I have been going through. This is what many of us have been going through – having our identities stolen, words put in our mouths, positions being announced in our names with our photographs attached to it. So welcome to the Wahala.”
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Soyika was asked about his take on the contemporary African writing scene.
He said; “Very healthy. There is a marvelous crop of young writers, particularly young female writers, who really have become a pride to the continent.”
