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9781526660572 632af8c61ba1696f25622179 Chronicles From The Land Of The Happiest People On Earth Soyinkas Greatest Novel //d2pyicwmjx3wii.cloudfront.net/s/607fe93d7eafcac1f2c73ea4/632af8c71ba1696f25622345/51rabefwdql-_sx327_bo1-204-203-200_.jpg

'Soyinka's greatest novel ... No one else can write such a book' - Ben Okri

'A lion of African literature' - Financial Times

'Chronicles is many things at once: a caustic political satire, a murder mystery, a conspiracy story and a deeply felt lament for the spirit of a nation' - Juan Gabriel Vásquez, New York Times

FINANCIAL TIMES AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

To Doctor Menka's horror, some cunning entrepreneur has decided to sell body parts from his hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Already at the end of his tether from the horrors he routinely sees in surgery, he shares this latest development with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne, who has never before met a puzzle he couldn't solve. Neither realise how close the enemy is, nor how powerful.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria's political elite, and a provocative call to arms from one of the country's most relentless political activists and an international literary giant.

'A high-jinks state-of-the-nation novel' - Chibundu Onuzo

'Chronicles is a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one' - Guardian

 
 

Review

Is this a good place to confess my crush, an overly bashful crush, on this politically courageous literary stylist . I look to Soyinka's life, not so much the choices he has made but the courage it took to make them, as a source of light - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sunday Times

A vivid and wild romp . A vast danse macabre. No one else can write such a book ... Chronicles is Soyinka's greatest novel . It ought to be widely read - Ben Okri, Observer

A lion of African literature . A brutally satirical look at power and corruption in Nigeria, told in the form of a whodunnit - Financial Times

A Nigerian icon . A high-jinks state-of-the-nation novel - Chibundu Onuzo, Guardian

A black-humoured satire of contemporary Nigeria - Telegraph

Chronicles is a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one . A triumph - Guardian

This is an extraordinary novel that is both in and of Nigeria. It contains elements of Yoruba culture and, in the middle of it all, is a gourd full of satire, humor and pathos. It is a chronicle of human folly among the happiest people on earth. The writing alone is a wonder and a fitting coda for the career of this great writer - New York Journal of Books

Inspiring and original ... Soyinka's analysis of the 20th century problem of memory and forgiveness in the African world is both timely and important. Soyinka's analysis of the problem is an initial volley in what will surely become a 21st century debate - New York Times Book Review

With caustic wit, Soyinka's carnivalesque depictions of venality ferret out hypocrisy from behind its elaborate guises and condemn crimes that challenge "the collective notion of soul". - New Yorker

He employs characteristically flamboyant language in a devastatingly detailed examination of Nigerian society - TLS

Chronicles is many things at once: a caustic political satire, a murder mystery, a conspiracy story and a deeply felt lament for the spirit of a nation ... For all its sarcastic undertones, for all its puns and plays on names, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a pessimistic novel, the work of a man with no illusions - Juan Gabriel Vásquez, New York TImes

Wole Soyinka is a legendary writer . He has inspired generations of writers worldwide . Wole draws on his lifetime steeped in resistance for his new novel, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. The title is ironic. It's a caustic, satirical takedown of corruption in a country not unlike his native Nigeria - Kirsty Wark, Newsnight

Swaggering and scabrous, at once a verbal spree and a fierce assault on totalitarianism - Observer

A whodunnit that turns into a searing indictment of modern Nigeria - i paper

A caustic satire - Daily Mail

A savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria's political elite and a provocative call to arms from one of the country's most relentless political activists and an international literary giant - The Voice

Soyinka . Is the tour guide for the last sixty years of Nigerian history and there is so much to see . bursting with humour and irony - Litro

Back with a roar . Kafkaesque . A shocking, scathing and gripping look at society and human behaviour all in one - Shiny New Books

A juggernaut of a novel . Bold and chaotic, it is somehow of the moment ... This is literature of the dynamic kind, fed not so much by carefully honed craft as by a profound, urgent energy: both cry for help and call to arms; a response, a lament, a reckoning - Lunate.co.uk

PRAISE FOR WOLE SOYINKA: You don't see things the same when you encounter a voice like that. - Toni Morrison

He is one of the best there is today, a poet and thinker who knows both how the world actually works and how the world should work. - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Wole Soyinka is a giant of modern literature. - Robert McFarlane

To have contained in the body of his work the fullness of individual vision, the potency of myth, the corruptions of power, and the misery of the oppressed, is a rare feat. - Ben Okri

Book Description

Africa's first Nobel Laureate in Literature returns to the novel after almost 50 years with an excoriating satire on the nature of power and an unforgettable portrait of contemporary Nigeria

About the Author

Wole Soyinka - playwright, novelist, poet and polemical essayist - was born in Nigeria in 1934. Educated there and at Leeds University, he worked in the British theatre before returning to West Africa in 1960. In 1986 he became the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. His plays include The Jero Plays (1960, 1966), The Road (1965), The Lion and the Jewel (1966), Madmen and Specialists (1971), Death and the King's Horseman (1975), A Play with Giants (1984), A Scourge of Hyacinths (1991) and From Zia, With Love (1992). His novels include The Interpreters (1973) and Season of Anomy (1980). His collections of poetry include Idanre (1967), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) - composed during a period of over two years in prison without trial, most of it in solitary confinement - and Mandela's Earth (1990). In 1988, his collection of essays on literature and culture, Art, Dialogue and Outrage was published. He has also written three autobiographical volumes Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay (1989) and Ibadan (1994). Since 2007 he has been Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
 
9781526660572
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Chronicles From The Land Of The Happiest People On Earth Soyinkas Greatest Novel

ISBN: 9781526660572
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  • ISBN: 9781526660572
  • Author: Wole Soyinka
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury
  • Pages: 464
  • Format: Paperback
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Book Description

'Soyinka's greatest novel ... No one else can write such a book' - Ben Okri

'A lion of African literature' - Financial Times

'Chronicles is many things at once: a caustic political satire, a murder mystery, a conspiracy story and a deeply felt lament for the spirit of a nation' - Juan Gabriel Vásquez, New York Times

FINANCIAL TIMES AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

To Doctor Menka's horror, some cunning entrepreneur has decided to sell body parts from his hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Already at the end of his tether from the horrors he routinely sees in surgery, he shares this latest development with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne, who has never before met a puzzle he couldn't solve. Neither realise how close the enemy is, nor how powerful.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria's political elite, and a provocative call to arms from one of the country's most relentless political activists and an international literary giant.

'A high-jinks state-of-the-nation novel' - Chibundu Onuzo

'Chronicles is a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one' - Guardian

 
 

Review

Is this a good place to confess my crush, an overly bashful crush, on this politically courageous literary stylist . I look to Soyinka's life, not so much the choices he has made but the courage it took to make them, as a source of light - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sunday Times

A vivid and wild romp . A vast danse macabre. No one else can write such a book ... Chronicles is Soyinka's greatest novel . It ought to be widely read - Ben Okri, Observer

A lion of African literature . A brutally satirical look at power and corruption in Nigeria, told in the form of a whodunnit - Financial Times

A Nigerian icon . A high-jinks state-of-the-nation novel - Chibundu Onuzo, Guardian

A black-humoured satire of contemporary Nigeria - Telegraph

Chronicles is a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one . A triumph - Guardian

This is an extraordinary novel that is both in and of Nigeria. It contains elements of Yoruba culture and, in the middle of it all, is a gourd full of satire, humor and pathos. It is a chronicle of human folly among the happiest people on earth. The writing alone is a wonder and a fitting coda for the career of this great writer - New York Journal of Books

Inspiring and original ... Soyinka's analysis of the 20th century problem of memory and forgiveness in the African world is both timely and important. Soyinka's analysis of the problem is an initial volley in what will surely become a 21st century debate - New York Times Book Review

With caustic wit, Soyinka's carnivalesque depictions of venality ferret out hypocrisy from behind its elaborate guises and condemn crimes that challenge "the collective notion of soul". - New Yorker

He employs characteristically flamboyant language in a devastatingly detailed examination of Nigerian society - TLS

Chronicles is many things at once: a caustic political satire, a murder mystery, a conspiracy story and a deeply felt lament for the spirit of a nation ... For all its sarcastic undertones, for all its puns and plays on names, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a pessimistic novel, the work of a man with no illusions - Juan Gabriel Vásquez, New York TImes

Wole Soyinka is a legendary writer . He has inspired generations of writers worldwide . Wole draws on his lifetime steeped in resistance for his new novel, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. The title is ironic. It's a caustic, satirical takedown of corruption in a country not unlike his native Nigeria - Kirsty Wark, Newsnight

Swaggering and scabrous, at once a verbal spree and a fierce assault on totalitarianism - Observer

A whodunnit that turns into a searing indictment of modern Nigeria - i paper

A caustic satire - Daily Mail

A savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria's political elite and a provocative call to arms from one of the country's most relentless political activists and an international literary giant - The Voice

Soyinka . Is the tour guide for the last sixty years of Nigerian history and there is so much to see . bursting with humour and irony - Litro

Back with a roar . Kafkaesque . A shocking, scathing and gripping look at society and human behaviour all in one - Shiny New Books

A juggernaut of a novel . Bold and chaotic, it is somehow of the moment ... This is literature of the dynamic kind, fed not so much by carefully honed craft as by a profound, urgent energy: both cry for help and call to arms; a response, a lament, a reckoning - Lunate.co.uk

PRAISE FOR WOLE SOYINKA: You don't see things the same when you encounter a voice like that. - Toni Morrison

He is one of the best there is today, a poet and thinker who knows both how the world actually works and how the world should work. - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Wole Soyinka is a giant of modern literature. - Robert McFarlane

To have contained in the body of his work the fullness of individual vision, the potency of myth, the corruptions of power, and the misery of the oppressed, is a rare feat. - Ben Okri

Book Description

Africa's first Nobel Laureate in Literature returns to the novel after almost 50 years with an excoriating satire on the nature of power and an unforgettable portrait of contemporary Nigeria

About the Author

Wole Soyinka - playwright, novelist, poet and polemical essayist - was born in Nigeria in 1934. Educated there and at Leeds University, he worked in the British theatre before returning to West Africa in 1960. In 1986 he became the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. His plays include The Jero Plays (1960, 1966), The Road (1965), The Lion and the Jewel (1966), Madmen and Specialists (1971), Death and the King's Horseman (1975), A Play with Giants (1984), A Scourge of Hyacinths (1991) and From Zia, With Love (1992). His novels include The Interpreters (1973) and Season of Anomy (1980). His collections of poetry include Idanre (1967), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) - composed during a period of over two years in prison without trial, most of it in solitary confinement - and Mandela's Earth (1990). In 1988, his collection of essays on literature and culture, Art, Dialogue and Outrage was published. He has also written three autobiographical volumes Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay (1989) and Ibadan (1994). Since 2007 he has been Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
 

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