SOURCE: White, Landeg. “Walking a Step with Soyinka.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4915 (13 June 1997): 27-8.

In the following review, White discusses the recurring political motifs in Soyinka's essays and dramas, citing The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis and Kongi's Harvest as prime examples.

When Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian, novelist, playwright and President of the Movement for the Salvation of the Ogoni People was hanged on November 10, 1995, following a rigged and rushed trial, the machinery of execution had rusted from disuse. As he was being led away from the gallows after the third or fourth botched attempt to kill him, he cried out “Why are you people doing this to me? What sort of a nation is this?” It is the question that haunts Wole Soyinka's newest book.

Despair and anger about Africa are commonplace. Writers who address it need a rare eloquence...