Of Africa
In this essay collection, Nigerian writer Soyinka, the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, examines the meaning of Africa as a concept and a category, an enigma and an imperative. His goal, however, is less to define Africa than to reject those who would limit it through externally imposed categories; he seeks instead to retrieve a few grains for germination from the wasteful threshing floor of Africa’s existential totality. His essays thus query how Africa’s history continues to impose limitations on its present: probing, for example, the continued consequences of artificial national boundaries imposed by Europeans centuries ago, or the legacy of European failed efforts to will ideas about what Africa is, or what Africa could be, into reality. Soyinka does not deceive himself about the profound problems that Africa faces today. But the overall tenor of this selection is optimistic, emphasizing Africa’s capacity to inspire authentic spirituality (the continent, he reminds us, is filled with religions that point the way to the harmonization of faiths) and resilient, life-embracing humanity. --Brendan Driscoll