You must set forth at dawn : a memoir PDF
Preview You must set forth at dawn : a memoir
Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Praise Chronology IBA— For Those Who Went Before PART I - Ogun and I Early Intimations Reunion with Ogun First Skirmishes PART II - Ogun, Less Benign Uncivil Wars: The Third Force and the Midwest Incursion A Moment of Truth —and the Lies of History The Conquest of Civilian Pride PART III - Interlude to a Friendship Interlude to a Friendship PART IV - Dining with the Devil—and an Avatar Olori-Kunkun and Ori Olokun The “Evil Genius” A Pen Coalition Dinner with an Avatar PART V - All the World . . . Night We Improvise From Ghetto to Garrison PART VI - Bernard Shaw Was Right! How the News Came to Me Thorns in the Crown Stockholm and Back Three Lost Years PART VII - Nation and Exile The Road to Exile By the Waters of Babylon Diplomatic Recruit Requiem for an Ecowarrior Arms and the Man A Final Mission PART VIII - Homecoming An Interim Welcome—Official Where the Earth Says Welcome! Acknowledgments About the Author Also By Wole Soyinka Copyright Page To all the fallen in our common cause, and to the surviving, scars and all, clamorous or hidden. To all my stoically resigned children. And to my wife, Adefolake, who, during the season of a deadly dictatorship, demoted me from the designation of Visiting Professor to that of Visiting Spouse, but was still left with only an Invisible Spouse as I was swallowed by my study even during visiting hours. Praise for You Must Set Forth at Dawn “[A] sprawling, delightful memoir... As a chronicle of modern Africa and its troubles from the continent’s foremost literary giant, You Must Set Forth at Dawn triumphs.” —The Washington Post “You Must Set Forth at Dawn is more than just the journey of a remarkable and controversial man through the backdrop of the controversial country he loves so much. It is not merely an important book. This is a book that must exist.” —San Francisco Chronicle “The fine detail of [Soyinka’s] oppositional activity, involving clandestine border crossings, strange bedfellows and secret diplomatic missions, is presented here for the first time. Adding it up, one wants to set him in the right company. Victor Hugo, Yeats, Byron and Alessandro Manzoni all come to mind.” —The New York Times Book Review “Wole Soyinka is a titan.... Playwright and poet, novelist and pamphleteer, editor and auto-biographer, cultural impresario and unofficial diplomat, democratic conspirator and ferocious, unappeasable warrior for justice, he has earned his Nobel Prize many times over.” —The New York Review of Books “Captivating . . . You Must Set Forth at Dawn is much more than a memoir. . . . Soyinka’s most powerful weapon has always been the eloquence of his voice as a writer.... [Soyinka’s art] will outlive both him and the regimes he opposed.” —The Nation “Profoundly rewarding . . . the synthesis of a wealth of ancient myths and traditions with the best of humanism and modernity, addressing the drama that is not only the author’s life but Africa’s contemporary reality.” — WQ: The Wilson Quarterly “Humane, sensible and impeccably written; a fitting summation of a life interestingly lived.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Engrossing... His lyrical evocations of African landscapes, the urban nightmare of Lagos, the horrors of British cuisine and the longing a dusty fugitive feels for a cold beer will entertain and educate readers.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A must for anyone concerned with human rights and the global web of oil, poverty, and corruption.” —Booklist
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