[Soyinka] is remembered in Nigeria with awe, both for a political boldness that landed him in prison and for a commanding intellect that is manifest in every genre he tackles. "Myth, Literature and the African World" … displays him as a critic and lecturer…. Soyinka discusses material—Yoruba myths and ritual dramas, plays by Afro-Brazilians as well as by Nigerians, postwar African novels and poetry good and bad—not within the usual province of the educated Westerner; but he does so with ample cross-references to Greek drama, Nietzschean aesthetics, Jungian philosophy, and Sartrean opinionizing, and in an accent uncompromisingly, if not even mordantly, lofty….

Soyinka's long, fibrous sentences, not easy to pry apart, generally contain some meat, or milk. (p. 147)

We are best situated to appreciate his brilliance when it focusses on matters close to us…. Though his language bristles with the full armory of European critical methodology, Soyinka...