Wole Soyinka on His New Satire of Corruption and Fundamentalism

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2021

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wole Soyinka is a giant of world literature. A Nobel laureate, he’s written more than two dozen plays, a vast amount of poetry, several memoirs, and countless essays and short stories—but, up until recently, only two novels. His third novel was published this past September, forty-eight years after the previous one. It's called “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.” The book is both a political satire and a murder mystery involving four friends, with subplots that include a secret society dealing in human body parts and more corruption than any one country can bear. Like his cousin the Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, Soyinka has made social commentary integral to his work. Soyinka’s journey into political activism began at a young age, and, in 1965, when he was twenty-one, he was arrested for armed robbery. But Soyinka tells Vinson Cunningham that political opposition didn’t come naturally to him. “I love my peace of mind and my tranquility,” he says, “[but] I cannot attain that if I have not attended to an issue or problem which I know is . . . manifesting itself in a dehumanizing way in others.” “Chronicles” explores not only how the governments are corrupt but the effect of corruption on societies and peoples. Soyinka also talks about why he waited so long to write another novel, and what the medium offers that theatre does not.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.7	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:13.3	In 1965, five years after Nigeria gained its independence, the playwright Wollahoyishya Yoyinka was already known as an opposition figure.
0:23.1	Authorities falsely accused him of armed robbery. And before the country's civil war at the late
0:28.2	60s, Shoyinka tried to avert fighting. He was accused of conspiring with rebels and was then
0:34.5	imprisoned by the Nigerian government. He's a writer with an astonishing history of putting himself on the line for his political
0:41.7	and social commitments.
0:44.1	Shoyenka has received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
0:46.9	He's written more than two dozen plays, a vast amount of poetry, several memoirs, essays,
0:51.7	and short stories, and just two novels.
0:54.6	His third novel is out now, nearly five decades after the last one.
0:59.2	It's called Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.
1:03.4	It's both a political satire and a murder mystery.
1:06.9	It involves four friends, a secret society dealing in human body parts, and more corruption than any one country can bear.
1:15.6	Staff writer Vincent Cunningham spoke to Wolle Sheenka at his home in Nigeria.
1:21.3	I really want to talk to you about chronicles from the land of the happiest people on Earth, a title that I love.
1:27.5	I heard that you've been thinking about this story for many years now.
1:30.5	How does it feel to have it out in the world?
1:32.9	It's been a little bit overwhelming, I think.
1:35.5	I wasn't expecting this kind of reception of it.
1:39.6	I mean, it's just part of my own creative continuum in a different format.
1:44.7	You know, it's like taking time off from theater to write a novel.
	...

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