SOURCE: "Drama and the African World-View," in Exile and Tradition: Studies in African and Caribbean Literature, edited by Rowland Smith, Longman Group Ltd, 1976, pp. 173-89.

Soyinka is a Nigerian novelist and dramatist, and he was the recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature. In the following excerpt, he discusses Song of a Goat within the context of the "matrical consciousness of the African world "

Song of a Goat, a play by J. P. Clark, has the advantage … of fitting into the neat category of tragedy in the European definition of this genre. It was first performed in Europe at me 1965 Commonwealth Festival of the Arts, London; its reception was not of the best, and for very good reasons. First, me production was weak and amateurish. An inexperienced group playing on a London stage for the first time in their lives found that they could not match the emotions...