Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth: A Novel Hardcover – September 28, 2021 by Wole Soyinka

Description

Author: Soyinka Wole

Color: Yellow

Package Dimensions: 0x0x567

Number Of Pages: 464

Release Date: 28-09-2021

Details: Product Description

The first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature gives us a tour de force, his first novel in nearly half a century: a savagely satiric, gleefully irreverent, rollicking fictional meditation on how power and greed can corrupt the soul of a nation.

In an imaginary Nigeria, a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr. Menka’s hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Dr. Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne. The life of every party, Duyole is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York, but it now seems that someone is deter­mined that he not make it there. And neither Dr. Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, or how powerful.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a literary hoot, a crafty whodunit, and a scathing indictment of political and social corrup­tion. It is a stirring call to arms against the abuse of power from one of our fiercest political activists, who also happens to be a global literary giant.

Review

Praise for Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

“Soyinka is unquestionably Africa’s most versatile writer and arguably her finest.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Wole Soyinka is one of the best there is today.”
—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Soyinka is a brilliant imagist who uses poetry and drama to convey his inquisitiveness, frustration, and sense of wonder.”

—Newsweek

“Wole Soyinka belongs in the company of V. S. Naipaul, V. S. Pritchett, and Vladimir Nabokov.”

—The New York Times

“You don’t see things the same way when you encounter a voice like that of Wole Soyinka.”
—Toni Morrison

About the Author

WOLE SOYINKA was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1934, he is an author, playwright, poet, and political activist whose prolific body of work includes
The Interpret­ers, his debut novel that was published in 1965, and
Death and the King’s Horseman, a play that was first performed in 1976. So­yinka was twice jailed in Nigeria for his crit­icism of the Nigerian government, and he destroyed his U.S. Green Card in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1. Oke Konran-Imoran

Papa Davina, also known as Teribogo, preferred to craft his own words of wisdom. Such, for instance, was his famous “Perspective is all.”

The early-morning Seeker, his first and only client on that day and a very special, indeed dedicated session, looked up and nodded agreement. Papa D. pointed: “Move to that window. Draw back the curtain and look through.”

It was somewhat gloomy in the audience chamber, and it took a while for the Seeker to grope her way along the wide folds to find the middle parting. She took the heavy drapes between both hands and waited. Papa Davina signaled to her to complete the motion, continuing in his soothing, near-meditative tone: “When you step into these grounds, it is essential that you forget what you are, who you were. Think of yourself only as the Seeker. I shall be your guide. I do not belong to the vulgar traders in the prophetic mission. The days of the great prophets are gone. I am with you only as Prescience. Only the Almighty God, the Inscrutable Allah, is Presence Itself, and who dares come into the Presence of the One and Only? Impossible! But we can come into His Prescience, such as I. We are few. We are chosen. We labour to read his plans. You are the Seeker. I am the Guide. Our thoughts can only lead to revelation. Please—pull the curtain apart. Completely.”

The Seeker moved along with the other half. Daylight flooded the room. Papa D.’s voice pursued her.

“Yes, look out and tell me what you see.”

The Seeker had come up on the opposite incline, which was total, unrelieved squalor. On this face of the h