The Chancellor's Reading Club selection for 2005
is "The Lion and the Jewel," by Wole Soyinka.
Wole Soyinka was born in 1934 in what is now
Nigeria. He studied first at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and
later at the University of Leeds in England. Interested from an
early date in drama, he founded a theater group in 1960 and wrote
several plays, including "The Lion and the Jewel."
An outspoken defender of human rights, Soyinka was
arrested in 1967 and imprisoned for almost two years for his
criticism of the civil war in Nigeria. Eventually freed after
international protest, he has remained a vocal advocate for the
rights of the oppressed.
In 1986 Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for
literature.
(from
"Wole Soyinka" at Nobelprize.org)
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"The Lion and the Jewel" is one of Soyinka's first
plays, produced in 1959 and published in 1963. The play
"is set in the Yoruba village of
Ilunjinte. The main characters are Sidi (the Jewel), 'a true
village bell' and Baroka (the Lion), the crafty and powerful Bale of
the village, Lakunle, the young teacher, influenced by western ways,
and Sadiku, the eldest of Baroka's wives. How the Lion hunts the
Jewel is the theme of this ribald comedy." (from The Lion and the
Jewel, Oxford University Press, 1963, rear cover)
Go to the Resources
page for more information about Soyinka, his literary works, and
Nigerian culture.
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