SOURCE: Hope, Christopher. “Rebels and Dreamers.” New Republic 201, no. 24 (11 December 1989): 40-2.

In the following review, Hope examines how Ìsarà: A Voyage around Essay represents a diverse range of literary genres, including memoirs, fairy tales, moral fables, and political studies.

When the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1986, the decision of the Swedish Academy to honor an African writer led to a controversy in Nigeria, and in other parts of Africa, that has not yet abated. Soyinka was attacked by some who espouse what is known as the “Afro-phone” cause; they consider the bestowal of such “European” baubles upon African writers limiting and demeaning at best, and at worst a deliberate attempt imperialistically to undermine the vigor of indigenous African literature. “Afro-centrists,” thundered the Nigerian critic Chinweizu at a recent literary gathering, “see the Nobel Prize as a local European prize, whose award to any...