A powerful drama by a major African writer challenging the arrogance of Westerners who claim that others are inferior and must accept “superior” Western values.

In 1986, Wole Soyinka was the first African to be awarded the Noble Prize for Literature. When Kinna mentioned celebration of his eightieth birthday last month, I picked up this book. I was very impressed by Soyinka’s talented writing and principles.

An incident that occurred in the 1940s in an isolated Nigerian village provided the factual framework for this play. The village tradition required that when their king died, his major adviser must “commit death” and be buried with him. Elesin, the King’s Horseman, has known all his life what his king’s death would mean for him. He is a vigorous man, not wanting to die, but accepting his fate. As the time for his ritual suicide approaches, he laughs with his people who want to give him everything he desires on his last day alive. When he spots an attractive young woman, she is given to him on the night before his death is planned. Drums beat to celebrate both the marriage and the expected funeral. But the British District Officer hears about what Elesin is doing and determines to stop him. Olunde, Elesin’s eldest son, has been studying medicine in London. Hearing that the king has died, he returns to his village to bury his father. He eloquently explains the importance of his father’s suicide. He asks why Westerners are determined to stop a man from an honorable act of ritual self-sacrifice when they are so eager to send millions of young men off to die defending their country. Nothing happens as anyone would have chosen as the play ends, but Soyinka makes clear his commitment to a world where all people’s values and beliefs are respected, especially around matters of life and death.
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