This was Soyinka's first novel -- he has written at least one other since; although he is better known for his plays and poetry, this is not a bad novel. The "interpreters" of the title are a group of friends who observe and satirize the corruption which was already endemic in Nigeria shortly after independence; the theme is similar to Achebe's No Longer at Ease, although the style is very different and less realistic. Like many literary novels of the sixties, the chronology is deliberately obscured by flashbacks and flashforwards to give a feeling of stasis; what's more important is the poetic, image-filled prose. As with Soyinka's plays and poetry, there is a substratum of Yoruba mythology -- partly explicit, in that one character is painting many of the others into a work called "Pantheon" as various Yoruba gods; I think that probably all the major characters, and many of the events, have analogues in the mythology, although I'm not familiar enough with this religion to identify them all. The novel has a good deal of humor, although some of it is overdone. There are many levels here and I probably didn't get all of them.

يصعب وصف الرواية لكنها مجنونة ككاتبها و رائعة

5 anos após a independência a rica Nigéria ja é uma cloaca de corrupção e miséria. O livro é como o pais: com recursos, incluindo belíssimas formulações, mas sem interesse.

A group of young Nigerian intellectuals struggle to articulate meaning amid the general squalor of modernity in post-independence Africa. Very good. Soyinka was better known as a playwrite, but this is small masterpiece. The characters are rich, humorous and tragic, the style is difficult but evocative, the setting will be foreign to most readers (or most readers reading this blog); in short, everything you'd want in a novel. Worth your time.

Wonderful book with a wild prose style, funny satire and jokes and great characterisation.

e.g.

"'Metal on concrete jars my drink lobes'. This was Sagoe, grumbling as his stuck fingers in his ears against the mad screech of iron tables. Then his neck was nearly snapped as Dehinwa leapt up and Sagoe's arm dangled in the void where her lap had been. Bandele's arms never ceased to surprise. At half-span they embraced tables and chairs, pushed them deep into the main wall as dancers dodged long chameleon tongues of the cloudburst and the wind leapt at them, visibly male-violent. In a moment only the band was left.
The 'plop' continued some time before its meaning came clear to Egbo and he looked up at the leaking roof in disgust, then threw his beer into the rain muttering.
'I don't need his pity. Someone tell God not to weep in my beer.'"

"He recalled that it had been the rainy season when he returned from Europe and America. Instead of heat he obtained electric shocks - once as he touched the faucet of a bath with his toes and another time through a finger as he dialled a number on the phone. When he told Mathias he said,
'Na austerity measure. Government wan join three ministry together -Works, Electricity and Communication' and roared away at the idea."

"The rains of May become in July slit arteries of the sacrificial bull, a million bleeding punctures of the sky-bull hidden in convulsive cloud humps, black, overfed for this one event, nourished on horizon ops of endless choice grazing, distant beyond giraffe reach. Some competition there is below, as bridges yield right of way to lorries packed to the running-board, and the wet tar spins mirages of unspeed-limits to heroic cars and their cargoes find a haven below the precipice. The blood of earth-dwellers mingles with blanched streams of the mocking bull, and flows into currents eternally below earth. The Dome cracked above Sekoni's short-sighted head one messy night. Too late he saw the insanity of a lorry parked right in his path, a swerve turned into a skid and cruel arabesques of tyres. A futile heap of metal, and Sekoni's body lay surprised across the open door, showers of laminated glass around him, his beard one fastness of blood and wet earth."

Redelijk complexe literatuur maar met een scherpe pen schetst Soyinka een satirisch portret van de corruptie en de morele verwarring die heersen in nigeria. Wegens gebrek aan voorkennis van Nigeria is soms uitdagend zijn om alle nuances en culturele verwijzingen te begrijpen. Toch een universeel verhaal over macht, identiteit en de zoektocht naar betekenis.

I found Soyinka's debut novel frustratingly inconsistent. There are wonderful, beautiful passages, some of which are incredibly dense, and there is a lot of patter that was boring to me, much of it semi-intellectual, but mostly sophomoric. Put it down, no you can’t, but it’s so dull, the conversation went on in my head as the high moments became further between. I adored Death and the King's Horseman and look forward to reading Soyinka's autobiographical works.

El nigeriano Wole Soyinka fue el primer africano en ganar el premio nobel de literatura en 1986 por ser "quien, en una perspectiva cultural amplia y con matices poéticos, innova el drama de la existencia".

Soyinka, a pesar de que muchos escritores africanos deciden no escribir en leguas europeas con tal de rechazar el colonialismo, decide escribir su literatura en inglés. Su obra está compuesta mayoritariamente por teatro, poesía y ensayo. Solo ha escrito dos novelas: Los Intérpretes y La Estación del Caos. Tengo la dicha de tener ambos en mi librero. Su obra es muy difícil de conseguir en español, hay muy poco traducido, por no decir que nada.

Datos curiosos de Soyinka: estuvo un tiempo en la carcel, entre 1967 y 1969, durante la guerra civil nigeriana. Una vez liberado comienza a escribir sobre su sufrimiento y el del pueblo nigeriano. Esto quizás se vea más en sus obras de teatro.
Tiene 89 años, y creo que de los galardonados con el nobel, que aún siguen con vida, es el más antiguo en tenerlo. Todos los nobeles antes de él creo que ya están muerto.

Los Intérpretes fue la primer novela que escribió, la obra narra la vida de un grupo de intelectuales nigerianos que quieren hacer lo que se les da la gana en medio de una sociedad corrupta y conformista, prácticamente burlandose de la sociedad. Trata de la cotidianidad en Lagos. Aparecen elementos claves de la cultura nigeriana, de las tribus que habitan el país, las diferencias bien marcadas entre ellas, y un poco de los mitos locales. Puedo decir, en una primera lectura con este nuevo escritor para mi, que la novela es algo cómica en partes, muy crítica.

Muchos críticos literarios la comparan con novelas de Faulkner o de James Joyce, la verdad no sabría nada de eso porque aún no he leído a esos dos últimos escritores.

وول سوينكا-المفسرون
/ذاكرة الشعوب الادب النيجيري

وول سوينكا عكس الواقع النيجيري بعد الاستقلال
من خلال خمسة شبان,لكل منهم طموحات واحلام يسعون الي تحقيقها
تناول في روايته المفسرون قضايا الفساد والوصولية لمجتمع لم يبصر النور بعد

احببت فيها اجبو وتردده
سيكوني وقبته الكونية
ساجو ومنطقه الافراغي
كولا والبنثايون خاصته
واخيرا بانديلي

A novel actively antagonistic to the reader, with dense, blurry descriptions and threads let off then abandoned, it has scenes of genius satire that will make you keep going even as you curse the surrounding muddle.

Soyinka's strength is obviously in dialogue, and the party scenes are uproarious at their best, once you try to follow who is who and as characters jump place and time from paragraph to paragraph.

The heavily descriptive parts are usually impenetrable and will have you questioning your ability to read.

The male characters are solid and stand in for different aspects of society, from ladies man to professor to missionary and artist, you're shown Soyinka's disdain for many aspects of the African world he sees.

The women are underwritten mothers or lovers though, and it feels much more like unpolished writing than brilliant meta-commentary on Soyinka's part.

Overall it's a frustrating experience, with flashes of great amid a tangle of overwriting and confusion. Feels very much like a first novel draft.

Sebuah karya yang agak berat untuk dihadam, kekangan utama dari sudut kefahaman naratif dan juga masa. Namun, ia kaya dengan semangat 'orang muda' yang baru membina kerjaya dalam sistem pentadbiran negara mereka yang 'sakit'. Saya menggemari dialog dan peristiwa Dehinwa berhujah dengan ibu dan ibu saudaranya dan peristiwa ketika upacara di gereja.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy this book as I had hoped I would. Maybe it's because of the tumultuous period I'm in right now or maybe it really is Soyinka's obfuscating style that irritated me—I can forgive him for it in his plays but in a novel, it's just unnecessary—that I have given up on it one-third of the way through. I hope to pick it up again one day when I can focus better. Although I have to say though that the number of characters, the lack of dialog tags where relevant, and the shifting timeline are uninspiring to re-read... I don't mind difficult reads, but I'm not sure what the reward of this one would be yet.