Read for a course in African Life-Writing. Learned much about Nigeria, its history, and Soyinka's reception in general.

Full disclosure: I didn't finish this book.

Soyinka's writing has beautifully rich metaphors, and he provides an informative view of life in a post-colonial world. I enjoyed much of this memoir.

However, at times he meanders with lots of little anecdotes - short stories about famous authors, poets, playwrights, political activists, etc. After several of those tangents, I decided to stop the book. I don't think these little stories add to the book, and I'd prefer more descriptions of life in the new Nigeria and how he managed, and thrived, amidst the turmoil.

The 1960's mid and late in Nigeria

An excellent memoire

Never regret reading the sage

Insightful read into the journey of a literary great in a turbulent society.

I recall in 1976 shortly after arriving in Nigeria, drinking late in the bar of a construction firm, when soldiers suddenly burst in and told us – all foreigners – to get the hell out and home. We were breaking a curfew, caused by the assassination of the president in an attempted (failed) coup. The president, Murtala Mohammed (after which Lagos international airport is named) is about the only Nigerian head of state that Wole Soyinke has a good word for. And he did interact with many of them, usually on negative terms. Even Olusegun Obasanjo, once considered for the top UN post, he considered devious and untrustworthy. Soyinke was imprisoned because, he claimed, of false testimony by Obasanjo, implicating him in supporting the Biafran cause.
Nigerian politics is the subject matter of much of the book. Which is why it may not appeal to every reader. But it fascinated me. To be honest, I’m not that interested in Soyinke, the writer, and have not read him before. I have only read a few Nigerian writers, Chinua Achebe, the most prominent. This book was lying on my bookshelf for ages but until now, I didn’t fancy reading it. His prose, at first glance, appeared dense and the syntax convoluted at times. But reading him, his style grows on you and it does sparkle in places. After all he did win the Nobel prize for Literature. But this prize is, like this book, often political. I would love to think that Soyinke, honest man that he is, would agree -at least to some extent !!

Good read

Enjoyed every bit of it. It was very instructional in the history of Nigeria under military dictatorship. However, the writer sometimes got carried away with his poetic self by diving into several paragraphs of word play before coming back to the meat of the book..... The story.

Great read

One of the best written books I’ve ever read. Never read a writer with the most absolute command of the English language.
The book tells the story of a life lived for the service of others and a nation, Nigeria and the sacrifices made to ensure democratic governance in Nigeria.
Surely Professor WS is a living legend, one of the founding fathers of Nigerian democracy.

As I write this review, I am yet to complete this book - despite having embarked on its reading about two years before. Soyinka without a doubt is a great writer and 'You Must Set Forth at Dawn' is no exception to one of his great works. It however lacks a through-line through which one can connect the history of Nigeria and his involvement in its shaping that he attempts to represent. The style Wole chooses is that of picking what he thinks would interest his reader; he spontaneously adopts a spot in his life and illuminates the scenes of importance with a lamp so bright and glorious. His description of events has poetic and dramatic overtones that are sure to entertain a reader.

If you are a reader who appreciates the poetic and stylistic nature of Soyinka's writing, with little interest in the flow of events, if you don't mind a book that will simply regale you, this is a book to pick.


These are some of the sections that, to me, bear out the magnificence in Wole's oeuvre:

A TEEMING CROWD of humanity is an awe-inspiring phenomenon. As an objective spectacle, that is all it is, a spectacle, but when you are within it, when you are one of the bits and pieces that make up the tumult, you become one with it, you share in the force that it represents and you endure a loss of identity, except as a compressed lump within the crowd.

I watched him walk up the driveway toward the main block of the police complex, his uniform sticking to him from the soaking he had had, more a bedraggled chicken than a Kill-and-Go SWAT machine. Since he was also thoroughly soaked on the inside, my mind flew to an item on Chinese
menus that I had never sampled but often wondered about—“Druncken Chicken,” as it was spelled—and I used to wonder if the chicken were made drunk before being dispatched or alcoholized after the terminal event. Still, I hoped he would arrive in one piece, which seemed very much open to
question, since he chose to drag his gun along the ground.

The opening paragraph of the book: OUTSIDE MYSELF AT MOMENTS LIKE THIS, HEADING HOME, I HESITATE A moment to check if it is truly a living me. Perhaps I am just a disembodied self usurping my body, strapped into a business-class seat in the plane, being borne to my designated burial ground—the cactus patch on the grounds of my home in Abeokuta, a mere hour’s escape by road from the raucous heart of Lagos. Perhaps I am not really within the cabin of the plane at all but lying in a coffin with the luggage, disguised as an innocent box to fool the superstitious, while my ghost persists in occupying a seat whose contours have grown familiar through five years of a restless exile that began in 1994. For my mind chooses this moment to travel twelve years backward when, drained of all emotion....

My first WS book. Found his syntax challenging at first but as I stuck to it it 'softened' up.
Being a Nigerian I have always bemoaned the dearth of documentation concerning events and the lives of important personages on our historical landscape. This book was an eye opener as it is mostly an account of Nigeria's modern history as seen through the events the author was involved in.
Next stop: "Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years, 1946-1965"

“Traveller, you must set forth
At dawn
I promise marvels of the holy hour…”

- Wole Soyinka

I knew a little bit about Soyinka, about the problems he'd encountered politically in Nigeria, which led to his exile. However, I had NO idea how crazy his experiences had actually been! Talk about intrigue! I'm actually quite surprised he survived all he experienced. And despite all his ordeals, he still managed to stay upbeat and witty.

The writing is very academic and challenging but it is well worth the perseverance.At times the language is lyrical and poetic. It's clear that Soyinka is a playwright; his writing style is very dramatic and engaging.

This is a great book for anyone interested in Nigerian history, which is quite turbulent, especially the Biafran war.