Death and the King's Horseman (Norton Critical Editions) [Paperback]

Wole Soyinka (Author), Simon Gikandi (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Norton Critical Editions | Publication Date: November 2002

This Norton Critical Edition of Death and the King's Horseman is the only student edition available in the United States. Based on events that took place in 1946 in the ancient Yoruban city of Oyo, Soyinka's acclaimed and powerful play addresses classic issues of cultural conflict, tragic decision-making, and the psychological mindsets of individuals and groups. The text of the play is accompanied by an introduction and explanatory annotations for the many allusions to traditional Nigerian myth and culture.

"Backgrounds and Sources" helps readers understand Death and the King's Horseman's traditional African contexts and the role of theater in African culture. Included are a map of Yoruba-land, discussions of Yoruban religious beliefs and cultural traditions, Soyinka on the various forms that theater has taken in African culture in order to survive, and Anthony Appiah on Soyinka's struggle with the problem of African identity in the creation of Death and the King's Horseman. Commentary on the play as both a theatrical production and a classroom text is provided by Gerald Moore, Tanure Ojaide, and Martin Rohmer.

"Criticism" collects nine major essays on the play and the difficulties it presents to readers. Contributors include D. S. Izevbaye, Eldred Durosimi Jones, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Biodun Jeyifo, Wole Soyinka, Joan Hepburn, Adebayo Williams, David Richards, and Olakunle George.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Soyinka both entertains and asks subtle questions about mass psychology, individual psychology, and universal human struggles of the will. -- Chicago Tribune --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Wole Soyinka, one of Africa's foremost writers, won the Nobel Prize in 1986 and is the author of Death and the King's Horseman, among other works.

Simon Gikandi is Robert Hayden Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. His books include Reading the African Novel, Writing in Limbo: Modernism and Caribbean Literature, and Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism. He is editor of the Ngugi wa Thiong’o volume in the Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature series. He is presently editing The Encyclopedia of African Literature (Routledge).

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393977617
• ISBN-13: 978-0393977615
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > African
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very stirring, November 25, 1999

By 

Giovanni Papiro (Siena, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death and the King's Horseman: A Play (Paperback)

I read this book in 1996, and I still remember almost every detail because it was so stirring, so moving. It is about pride and obligations and how the two shape one's role in society. It made me review my own definitions of these two things, my own life in different societies. I'm delighted to have read this book and will be reading it many times over.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Western Ignorance and Centrcity Imposing Itself On Africa, April 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Death and the King's Horseman: A Play (Paperback)

In this play Soyinka gives such roundness to his characters that it is hard for some to decipher their goodness or "badness" as characters. The play is a story of the western colonizers' failure to recognize African culture as substantial. The play deals with the Yoruba religion and a specific ritual that is thwarted by an ignorant colonizer who does so for reasons traced back to ethnocentricity and racism. The man who is deemed to kill himself is pitied by the westerners and this shows their hippocrisy. By demanding that suicide was immoral and could not be a spiritual endeavor they denied the status of one of the most important men to grace Western Civilization with their presence: Jesus Christ. Christ gave himself away the same way that the character in this play does and did so for spiritual reasons that transcended himself.
THe play gives great insight into African culture and builds with intensity to a hugely climatic ending that is rewarding for the reader to experience.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Great Writer, May 24, 2000

By 

Ross Ike - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death and the King's Horseman: A Play (Paperback)

At a university seminar in the US recently, Prof. Soyinka was asked to respond to charges by certain critics that his writing wasn't 'African' enough. He responded, saying "The people who say these things, I refer to as neo-Tarzanists, people whose Africa is the Africa of Tarzan, swinging from tree to tree. That's not my Africa", he said, to a standing, thunderous ovation. It is difficult to imagine a writer in English today with a wider grasp of the language. Some of his work is unbelievable - metaphor, irony, the supernatural, interwoven with tragedy, lyricism, and language. Top-draw.