Death and the King's Horseman: A Play [Paperback]

Wole Soyinka (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1990

A Nobel Prize-winning playwright's classic tale of tragic decisions in a traditional African culture.

Based on events that took place in Oyo, an ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946, Wole Soyinka's powerful play concerns the intertwined lives of Elesin Oba, the king's chief horseman; his son, Olunde, now studying medicine in England; and Simon Pilkings, the colonial district officer. The king has died and Elesin, his chief horseman, is expected by law and custom to commit suicide and accompany his ruler to heaven. The stage is set for a dramatic climax when Pilkings learns of the ritual and decides to intervene and Elesin's son arrives home. "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.

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. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 77 pages
• Publisher: Hill & Wang (December 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374522103
• ISBN-13: 978-0374522100
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #846,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > African > West 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.