Book Chat with Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka

The Nigerian Nobel laureate in Literature, Wole Soyinka, on the invitation of the Council on Foreign Relations-Ghana (CFR-Ghana) will participate in its Distinguished Lecture Series in Accra on Friday, September 25 at the International Conference Centre. On Saturday, September 26, he will be engaged at the Goethe Institute in Cantonments in a literary conversation with the Ghanaian literary anthologist, Ivor Agyeman-Duah.

Under the title A Season of Anomy - Covid-19 and the Creative Muse, the conversation will center around moral therapeutic questions in times of crisis as in Soyinka’s second novel, Season of Anomy (1973).

Jointly organized by the CFR-Ghana, Goethe Institute, Writers Project of Ghana, e-Ananse and Vidya Bookshop, there will be remarks from the UNESCO Representative-Ghana, Mr Abdourahamane Diallo. There will be live online streaming by Goethe-Institut Ghana, Writers Project of Ghana, e-Ananse.

Soyinka's 50th book, Beyond Aesthetics- Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Tradition published by Yale University Press and Bookcraft in Ibadan will have an autograph session.

There will also be short readings by physicist and writer Martin Egblewogbe from the anthology Between the Generations - An Anthology for Ama Ata Aidoo at 80 edited by Agyeman-Duah. This anthology has contributions from leading contemporary writers including Ama Ata Aidoo, whose story Aleppo deals with fictional memories of Syria in ruins.

Whilst Beyond Aesthetics “is a passionate discussion of the role of identity, tradition and originality in making, collecting, and exhibiting African art today”, the anthology Between the Generations with contributions from Njabulo Ndebele (South Africa), Sefi Atta and Ogochukwu Promise (Nigeria), Boubacar Boris Diop (Senegal), Ayesha Harruna Attah (Ghana-Senegal), Louise Umutoni (Rwanda), Ray Ndebi(Cameroon), Gheysika A. Agambila (Ghana) and Bisi Adjapon –(Nigeria/Ghana), has enjoyed extensive reviews and excerpt publications in the Johannesburg Review of Books and Africa in Words (UK) among others.