The Nobel Prize-winning writer introduces Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, his first novel in 48 years, in a live-streamed conversation.
Following engineer and Yoruba royal Duyole Pitan-Payne, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a dazzlingly brutal look at the nature of greed, power and the soul of a nation.
The novel is described by Publishers Weekly as ‘a biting satire . . . and an intriguing and droll whodunnit’.
Born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta, Nigeria, Wole Soyinka published his debut novel in 1964.
During the same decade, he became an outspoken political activist and a critic of the Nigerian government, leading to the first of two sentences as a political prisoner.
Since then, Soyinka has remained an enduring critic of successive Nigerian governments, and the nature of corruption at large, even evading a death sentence in absentia.
In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Presented in partnership with Guardian Live
Age recommendation/restriction
For ages 16+
Time: 7.30pm
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