The Word, The World and the Writers - Wole Soyinka - Part 1

                                 

Was reading the travelogue of Benyamin – ‘Marquez Ellatha Macondo’ ( Macondo without Marquez) yesterday. The book is about the travels of the author through Tanzania, Latin America, Germany, Poland and other European countries. There is a chapter in which he discusses his experience of attending the Berlin International Literary Festival. The festival has been blessed by the presence of various famous authors from around the world and one of the authors is Wole Soyinka. This is a testimony to the influence and literary importance of this Nigerian writer. I was introduced to this writer during my graduate days through that celebrated poem – ‘The Telephonic Conversation ‘which discusses the skin and its colours. The poem was taught in the class amidst the giggles and laughter of the students who failed to grasp the pain of the author as he explains the colour of his skin to a prospective landlady in the UK. The same is true in our own country. The questions posed by the landowners to their prospective tenants are sometimes bordered on police interrogation methods. There is a movie which I plan to watch is all about house hunting in the city where I am living now. It is titled ‘To Let’. 

Wole Soyinka like any other African writer carries the baggage which contains the weight of post-colonialism and pain of a birth of a nation from its shackles. In an exclusive interview with a stone-faced journalist who refers to just one his literary work - ‘The Trials of Brother Jero’, Wole Soyinka shares his political views and his dreams for Africa. What was striking about the interview is that it was aired on the YouTube channel of CGTV - China Global Television Network. Chinese companies have heavily invested in Africa and the Chinese are collaborating with different African governments for building roads and bridges. For me, this is another form of Colonisation. Instead of making the African independent he is again at the mercy of a superpower. Europeans and Americans were primarily concerned with the human resources in Africa which led to the thriving slave markets. ‘China wants everything from Africa: its strategic location, its oil, its rare earth metals, and its fish, leaving African nations indebted to Beijing’- These are the opening lines from an article which appeared in the Forbes magazine. The title of the article is What China Wants from Africa? Everything - https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/05/04/what-china-wants-from-africa-everything/#5dbd1a8b758b. China has replaced the US and the European Union as the main benefactors in Africa.

Wole Soyinka is the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is a poet, novelist, playwright and political activist. He was jailed for 22 months and during that time he recorded his thoughts on a piece of paper which was later published as a book. When Trump was elected as the POTUS, Wole Soyinka threw away his Green Card and returned to his home in Nigeria. Even during his exile days, he was worried about the identity of the Africans and he believed that the African countryside markets reflected the tumult of the African life. Wole Soyinka is also worried about the recent instances of brutality by Africans on Africans. He says that the brutality is on high and he calls it as the ‘Internal inhumanity’. He aspires for democracy for his people and he is against any form of dictatorship. He describes his exile in the US as a ‘political sabbatical’