SOURCE: Maja-Pearce, Adewale. “Soyinka's Faith in the Future.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4795 (24 February 1995): 27.

In the following review, Maja-Pearce praises Soyinka's honesty and insight in Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir, 1946-65, noting that the work “is an act of faith in the possibilities of the future, written with the authority of one who has experienced the worst of those years.”

In 1965, at the height of the political crisis in the then Western Region of Nigeria, Wole Soyinka entered the state-controlled radio station and forced the bewildered broadcasters—at gun-point—to play a pre-recorded tape announcing the true results of the recent elections, then in the process of being rigged by the government of the day. Whatever else, the future Nobel laureate could hardly be accused of lacking physical courage. He was subsequently charged with armed robbery, and was lucky to be freed on a technicality, but those were...