Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka, one of the best-known playwrights in the English-speaking world, was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, in 1934. He attended St. Peter’s School in Abeokuta, where his...

Death and The King's Horseman, which many consider Wole Soyinka's greatest play, is based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during British colonial rule when the ritual suicide of the Horseman of an important chief was prevented by the...

In An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Bennett and Royle open by posing a number of questions about beginnings: When will we have begun? Where--or when--does a literary text begin? ... Does a text begin as the author puts his...

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In the following essay, Williams explores the function of ritual in Death and the King's Horseman, commenting that Soyinka “counterpose[s the dominant culture of the ancient Oyo kingdom against the equally hegemonic culture of the white invaders.”]

In the following essay, King discusses the development of Soyinka's overall body of work—from The Interpreters to Death and the King's Horseman—and what Soyinka's receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature means for African writers.