Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years. A Memoir: 1946-1965
Wole Soyinka
$ 15.95 / paperback
ISBN 9782462462
Spectrum Books Limited
Import Book
Memoir / Africa / Nigeria

An uneasy evening in the Kray twins’ pub in London’s East End with world famous theatre director Joan Littlewood; a lightning bolt that strikes the light switch beside his desk at school; a confrontation in Cairo Airport’s quarantine compound which nearly ends in his being beaten to death – many such bizarre encounters form a regular pattern for Maren, Wole Soinka’s alter ego in this account of his boyhood and young manhood.  The narrative moves back and forth in time between his schooldays in Ibadan, confronting bullies and discovering the poetry of Blake; his student days in Leeds; his stints in London as play reader at the royal Court Theatre; in Paris as would-be café singer; and the University of Ibadan as Research Fellow in Drama, writing, directing and running two theatre companies.  Ibadan occupies a special place in the story.  This is where the schoolboy finally breaks free from the liberal Christianity of his parental home, and where he later begins his running battle with corrupt authority, contesting the infamy of power, first with his dramatic satires and then through direct action, eventually holding up a radio station at gunpoint.

In this portrait of ‘the young man as an artist – and political activist,’ Maren appears as no plaster saint.  A tempestuous spirit in tempestuous times, he struggles almost obsessively to maintain independence of mind and action within a demanding and intrusive environment.  At one point, he wonders whether the essence of this being is not akin to that of a lightning conductor. After this enthralling journey with him through the Penkelemes years, the years of confusion and corruption, it is hard to disagree.