Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka is the author of the autobiography and the one through whose eyes we witness the events of the story. He is aged from three and one-half to eleven in the span of the narrative. As such, he brings a child's perspective to events. He is very intelligent (he is progressing through elementary and then grammar school very quickly), but that is not to say he is not without his stupid decisions and faults. He is a mischievous boy, mischief primarily borne from his intelligent curiosity. In one incident, while playing tag Wole nearly loses an eye to a grass-cutting scythe. In another, searching his ceiling for presents he makes a gun go off.

Human as the rest of us, he is capable of humiliation and violence, as when his family makes fun of him in front of a woman he fully intends to marry, at...