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.