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Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years ; A Memoir, 1946 65
"Ibadan" is the third volume in Wole Soyinka's series of memoirs, the sequel to "Ake and Isara". In a mixture of fact and fiction - to protect the innocent and nail the guilty and shape an often intolerable reality - it tells of the coming of age of a writer and political activist; and of a nation's betrayal. Linking national and international events with personal experience across 20 years, from confrontations with French immigration officers and the trauma of being black in Britain, to the direct experience of corruption, ballot-rigging, and power-mongering in his native Nigeria - a period otherwise known as the Penkelemes years - "Ibadan" is an exploration into themes of racism, politics and injustice.
396 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 1994
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About the author
Wole Soyinka
207 books1,238 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ifẹ̀. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.
In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ifẹ̀. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.
In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 3, 2014
I picked this book up in my local charity bookshop and bought without even reading the blurb. It's the first thing I've read by Soyinka so I was unprepared for his style, and it took me a while to get past the feeling that he was using a very mannered, pompous, elite private-school-boy English! He reminded me of Ifemelu's father in Americanah. I had to remind myself that I was not reading the work of some snotty self-important Oxbridge white boy determined to humilate his interlocutors by speaking entirely in vocabulary words.
The distinctive English meant that I got the feel of what colonial education was like by style as well as by description. It was particularly interesting to have the occasional glimpse of how the boys were aware of their education as a colonial project and both trivialised and resisted this.
I have to admit that I found it difficult to follow many parts of the book. Once he got into a groove talking about some particular series of events or period of his life I would begin to enjoy the ride, but then something more nebulous would go on and I'd lose the thread again. This is entirely my fault, as I'm ignorant about Nigerian politics and lacked the patience to carefully process the unfamiliar information or do background research.
I enjoyed the school bits, and I had fun reading of Soyinka's (or rather his alter-ego's) time in London working (or rather not working) with Joan Littlewood. The relationship between fact and fiction was, I felt, not unclear, but felt lumpy somehow. His use of the third person and an alter-ego created what I felt was a strange lack of immediacy, and the non-naming of and indirect way of speaking about women helped the book to feel overwhelmingly male. I think only Littlewood has any presence at all among females who appear. The protagonist is a self-confessed womaniser, but his discretion is so extreme that I sometimes felt that women simply do not register as real people to him!
Still, he tells some exciting, near-incredible heroic tales of political activism and surviving invidious machinations of the state and various factions, all while trying to keep the show going on. It's obvious from this memoir why Soyinka is a national figure.
The distinctive English meant that I got the feel of what colonial education was like by style as well as by description. It was particularly interesting to have the occasional glimpse of how the boys were aware of their education as a colonial project and both trivialised and resisted this.
I have to admit that I found it difficult to follow many parts of the book. Once he got into a groove talking about some particular series of events or period of his life I would begin to enjoy the ride, but then something more nebulous would go on and I'd lose the thread again. This is entirely my fault, as I'm ignorant about Nigerian politics and lacked the patience to carefully process the unfamiliar information or do background research.
I enjoyed the school bits, and I had fun reading of Soyinka's (or rather his alter-ego's) time in London working (or rather not working) with Joan Littlewood. The relationship between fact and fiction was, I felt, not unclear, but felt lumpy somehow. His use of the third person and an alter-ego created what I felt was a strange lack of immediacy, and the non-naming of and indirect way of speaking about women helped the book to feel overwhelmingly male. I think only Littlewood has any presence at all among females who appear. The protagonist is a self-confessed womaniser, but his discretion is so extreme that I sometimes felt that women simply do not register as real people to him!
Still, he tells some exciting, near-incredible heroic tales of political activism and surviving invidious machinations of the state and various factions, all while trying to keep the show going on. It's obvious from this memoir why Soyinka is a national figure.
November 26, 2012
When you start reading this book, do not give up. It is in two parts with the first part written in a rather pedantic and extremely self absorbed manner. The second part however is sheer delight and makes up for muddling through the first. In the second part the author suddenly turns story teller and he commences to weave a vivid and colourful tale of Ibadan, the quintessentially Yoruba city, and the author's residence there and his escapades. Some of those escapades are indeed essential parts of Nigerian history. I recommend it.
June 3, 2010
This book is a rich source of insight and understanding into those early years of Nigerian Independence, particularly for subsequent generations who didn't live through that period.
An heartfelt gratitude goes out from me to the author for choosing to pen his experiences of this period down for the sake of posterity.
An heartfelt gratitude goes out from me to the author for choosing to pen his experiences of this period down for the sake of posterity.
August 13, 2019
I love the combination of stories from his time in Apataganga to his time as a lecturer and the obvious political unrest caused by the NNDP and Akintola.
I am particularly impressed about a man who never gives up on Nigeria. Soyinka possess a great story telling skills with a great sense of humour.
What this book has ironically done to me is this;
Just after completing the reading of 'Ibadan, the penkelemes years' by Wole Soyinka, embers of hope that I had for that country, Nigeria is totally obliterated. I now understand the ostracism of history from college curriculum by the leadership of that country...!
I am particularly impressed about a man who never gives up on Nigeria. Soyinka possess a great story telling skills with a great sense of humour.
What this book has ironically done to me is this;
Just after completing the reading of 'Ibadan, the penkelemes years' by Wole Soyinka, embers of hope that I had for that country, Nigeria is totally obliterated. I now understand the ostracism of history from college curriculum by the leadership of that country...!
June 27, 2019
Read this book over fifteen years ago and I was enthralled with the life and adventure of Prof. Wole Soyinka as described in the memoir. Ake: the childhood years was what really endeared me to his writings. It makes an interesting read and I would love to read it again.
August 30, 2023
Great work thanks for sharing this Ibadan Oyo State with us i really like it.
January 15, 2014
Inspiring!
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November 29, 2016I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT PENKELEMES YEARS
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews