“But how can we ever be enriched ... if we do not recognise the tragic prelude to the moment of triumph?” (Wole Soyinka, Six Plays. London: Methuen, 1984. xviii)
Ogun Abibimañ (Rex Collings, 1976; Opon Ifa, 1976; Ravan, 1997) is a poetic tour de force; or, as the author would have it, a “revolutionary joie de vivre”: in his sense of a celebration of human responsibility and agency (Soyinka, Six Plays, xviii). Specifically, these 483 lines of loose blank verse, with occasional anger-induced line fractures, comprise an epic poem that celebrates President Samora Machel's decision to end a fruitless process of dialogue with the white minority regime in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and his …
Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are not a subscriber, please click here to read about membership. All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors.