You Must Set Forth at Dawn(黎明时出发)|报价￥116.70|图书,进口原版,Biographies & Memoirs 传记,Arts & Literature 文学及艺术,
品牌：
基本信息
·出版社：Random House Trade Paperbacks
·页码：528 页码
·出版日：2007年
·ISBN：9780375755149
·条码：9780375755149
·装帧：平装
内容简介
The first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as a political activist of prodigious energies, Wole Soyinka now follows his modern classic Ake: The Years of Childhood with an equally important chronicle of his turbulent life as an adult in (and in exile from) his beloved, beleaguered homeland.
In the tough, humane, and lyrical language that has typified his plays and novels, Soyinka captures the indomitable spirit of Nigeria itself by bringing to life the friends and family who bolstered and inspired him, and by describing the pioneering theater works that defied censure and tradition. Soyinka not only recounts his exile and the terrible reign of General Sani Abacha, but shares vivid memories and playful anecdotes–including his improbable friendship with a prominent Nigerian businessman and the time he smuggled a frozen wildcat into America so that his students could experience a proper Nigerian barbecue.
More than a major figure in the world of literature, Wole Soyinka is a courageous voice for human rights, democracy, and freedom. You Must Set Forth at Dawn is an intimate chronicle of his thrilling public life, a meditation on justice and tyranny, and a mesmerizing testament to a ravaged yet hopeful land.
From the Hardcover edition.
作者简介
Wole Soyinka is a writer of global stature, the first African ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was imprisoned in Nigeria for his opposition to dictatorship. Soyinka is the author of Ake: The Years of Childhood and Climate of Fear, based on the prestigious Reith Lectures he delivered on the BBC.
From the Hardcover edition.
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书评
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.In this engrossing follow-up to his acclaimed childhood memoir,Aké, the Nigerian poet, playwright and Nobel laureate demonstrates what it means to be a public intellectual. Soyinka revisits a tumultuous life of writing and political activism, from his student days in Britain through his struggles, sometimes from prison or exile, against a succession of Nigerian dictatorships. Soyinka may be on a first-name basis with almost every major Nigerian figure and he''s sometimes involved in high-level intrigues; his chronicle of political turmoil is very personal, full of sharply drawn sketches of comrades and foes, and cantankerous rejoinders to critics. His novelistic eyewitness accounts of repression and upheaval widen out from time to time to survey the humiliation and corruption of Nigerian society under military rule. Soyinka also includes recollections of friends and family, of sojourns abroad with W.H. Auden and other literati and of stage triumphs and fiascoes. His lyrical evocations of African landscapes, the urban nightmare of Lagos, the horrors of British cuisine and the longing a dusty fugitive feels for a cold beer will entertain and educate readers. By turns panoramic and intimate, ruminative and politically resolute, Soyinka''s memoir is a dense but intriguing conversation between a writer and his times.(Apr. 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
FromThe New Yorker
Early in this memoir, Soyinka, the Nobel-winning playwright, says that he is "a closet glutton for tranquillity." The account that follows details a decidedly untranquil life of activism, imprisonment, and exile over the past half century. In 1956, as a Nigerian student in England, Soyinka considered joining the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets, thinking it a "perfect rehearsal" for future African insurgencies, but his father advised, "Kindly return home and make this your battlefield." The bulk of the book concerns Soyinka''s struggles against one corrupt Lagos administration after another, shedding light on the outsize characters of African politics. Along the way, Soyinka recalls how once, in Venice, W. H. Auden tried to pass him off as an African prince, and reveals that, after winning the Nobel Prize, he came down with writer''s block, "overwhelmed by the futility of everything I had ever done."
Copyright © 2006The New Yorker--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
FromBookmarks Magazine
Just when it seems that the premise of the latest tell-all memoir can''t get any thinner, this powerful exemplar of the genre arrives on bookshelves. Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for literature, delivers a book that is as much a history of a country as it is the story of his life. That Soyinka''s story so closely aligns with the history of Nigeria testifies to his ongoing commitment to the cause of democracy, but the focus on politics leaves a few reviewers wishing for more of the personal stories found inAké, his first memoir, andThe Man Died, about his two-year imprisonment.You Must Set Forth at Dawnis not always easy going, especially for those unfamiliar with African history. For those willing to take the journey, Soyinka''s account breathes with the "fullness of an epic" (San Francisco Chronicle).<BR>Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
FromBooklist
As much a political history of contemporary Nigeria as an autobiography, this candid memoir by the Noble Prize winner begins after the death of the vicious dictator Sani Abacha in 1998, when Soyinka returned home from five years in exile. Then he goes back and forth in time, remembering and reflecting on his role as writer and political activist in Nigeria and across the world. Outraged by the chaos in Nigeria after the fight for independence from Britain in 1960--corruption and violence, coups, countercoups, assassinations, massacres--he is neither self-righteous nor simplistic as he confronts the political reality. "Purity is an unaffordable luxury." But how much do you compromise? "How long is the spoon for dining with the devil and how do you keep a firm hold on it?" There is not much about Soyinka''s family life here and only just a glimpse of his own two years in solitary detention without trial, which he chronicled inThe Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka(1972). But there is vivid detail about his close political friendships, including his meetings with great activists, such as Nelson Mandela (to whom Soyinka dedicated his Nobel speech). With the passionate close-up view of the past and the valuable insights, many of them highly critical, about today''s leaders, this is a must for anyone concerned with human rights and the global web of oil, poverty, and corruption.Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
Review
Praise for Wole Soyinka
“What if V. S. Naipaul were a happy man? What if V. S. Pritchett had loved his parents? What if Vladimir Nabokov had grown up in a small town in western Nigeria and decided that politics were not unworthy of him? I do not take or drop these names in vain. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian novelist, playwright, critic, and professor of comparative literature, belongs in their company.”
–John Leonard, The New York Times
“[Soyinka is] a master of language, and [is committed] as a dramatist and writer of poetry and prose to problems of general and deep significance for man.”
–Lars Gyllensten, from his presentation speech awarding Wole Soyinka the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986
“A brilliant imagist who uses poetry and drama to convey his inquisitiveness, frustration, and sense of wonder.”
–Newsweek
“If the spirit of African democracy has a voice and a face, they belong to Wole Soyinka.”
–Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times
From the Hardcover edition.
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