In terms of theme, Wole Soyinka’s novel, Season of Anomy to date, is one of Africa's most insightful literary works. Its concern with problematizing war, ethno-regional politics, and venal military cabals could hardly be more pertinent to the convulsive country that it addresses. The novel is a definitive reading of the militarized state in Africa. In spite of its visionary optic, the work is impaled on the horns of a very contemporary African dilemma, namely: what are the elements of a political program for social reconstruction in the context of a suffocating predatory state? The problem is evident in the text's tension with respect to violence versus non-violence on the one hand, and mass-line activism versus individual heroism on the other.
image credit: John Kehoe Bookseller