Summary
You Must Set Forth at Dawn (Random House)
Nobel Prize-winning African playwright Wole Soyinka explores the myths of exile and return that underlie his most recent memoir. He contrasts European and African cosmologies, and describes his passionate activism as a quest influence by the gods.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation. |
| 0:07.5 | You are a human animal. |
| 0:11.6 | You are a very special breed. |
| 0:15.4 | Or you are the only animal. |
| 0:18.7 | Who can think, who can reason, who can read. |
| 0:23.0 | From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm. |
| 0:28.1 | Today, I'm honored to have as my guest, Wolei Shoyinka. |
| 0:32.9 | He is the author most recently of You Must Set Forth at Dawn, which has been published by Random House. |
| 0:41.1 | It's the fourth volume of his memoirs, a series that began with great power with a chronicle of |
| 0:49.3 | childhood called Ake, the Years of Childhood. The other volumes are Ishara and Ibadan. |
| 0:58.0 | But more importantly, he is a globally important playwright. |
| 1:04.0 | His many plays have been published by Oxford, by Matthewan, by the Dramedith's Play Service. He is as well |
| 1:16.6 | a poet whose collected poetry appeared in a single volume and a subsequent newer volume. Samarkand |
| 1:24.6 | appeared, I think, two years ago or so. |
| 1:28.6 | And he is a Nobel Prize laureate, having won the award in 1986. |
| 1:37.9 | He was the first African to receive the award, which led to a period of lionization. |
| 1:48.0 | He says in the memoir that George Bernard Shaw was right, |
| 1:51.9 | that the Nobel Prize, that someone should destroy dynamite, |
| 1:56.6 | the people who invented the Nobel Prize, |
| 1:59.3 | because it interrupts one's life. |
| 2:02.3 | But it is a life that's been full of interruption because Shoyenka's pursuit of justice |
| 2:08.9 | has been, if not as important to him as his art. |
... |
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