Study Materials in Literature in English

Death and the King's Horseman

Based on an incident that took place in 1946, Death and the King's Horseman is Soyinka's powerful examination of the explosive tension between traditional African culture and the West. The king of a Nigerian village has died, and Elesin, his chief horseman, is expected to "commit death" and accompany his ruler to heaven. The entire village joins in honoring him, until a colonial administrator learns of the ritual and decides to imprison Elesin rather than permit the suicide. Elesin interprets...

Miquel Street

Every morning when he got up Hat would sit on the banister of his back verandah and shout across, ‘What happening there, Bogart?’ Bogart would turn in his bed and mumble softly, so that no one heard, ‘What happening there, Hat?’ It was something of a mystery why he was called Bogart; but I suspect that it was Hat who gave him thename. I don’t know if you remember the year the film Casablanca was made. That was the year whenBogart’s fame spread like fire through Port of Spain and h...

The Voter

Chinua Achebe believed that as an author function is a social one. In his novels he criticizes both the dehumanizing effects of British imperialism in Nigeria population and the destructive influences of Nigerian political corruption that plagued his country after achieving independence.