Visionary mythopoesis in fictional and nonfictional prose entails language usage as both medium of expression and an idiom with
a materiality upon which the writer expends considerable playfulness
and inventiveness, why should we not expect Soyinka to transfer these
attitudes to his use of English?
A charged, dramatic expression of this controversy is evident in the
reception of Soyinka’s fictional prose. His first novel,The Interpreters, was
hailed as a distinctive, original contribution to modern African fiction.
Critics praised its rich verbal texture, its complexity of narrative tech-
nique and unconventional mode of characterization, and its fresh and
invigorating use of language. But the very terms of the critical praise for
the novel negatively reinforced some of the prevailing theoretical and
ideological confusions regarding the alleged non-African provenance of
the novel and the presumed difficulties African novelists have in master-
ing the intricacies of the form, especially in its modernist, experimental
mode. Thus, one critic, Charles Larson, on the basis of this single novel,
hailed Soyinka, together with Ayi Kwei Armah, as a novelist whose work
demonstrated a bright future for the novel in Africa. On the basis of
this evaluation, Larson placed Soyinka and Armah at the apex of an
evolutionary movement of the African novel away from narrative forms
associated with realist modes toward modernist forms.
Soyinka’s second novel,Season of Anomyconfounded such expectations,
both because it is, so far, the only other novel “proper” that Soyinka has
written, and, more importantly, because compared withThe Interpreters,
this novel was a huge disappointment, so much so that for many critics,
it seriously undermined the Nigerian dramatist’s stature as a novelist.
The adverse critical response it generated was strong enough to elicit
the following self-critical qualifications from Soyinka himself about his
attitude to the novel as a literary genre, as an idiom for his sensibilities
as a writer-activist:
I’m not really a keen novelist. And I don’t consider myself a novelist. The first
novel happened purely by accident. In fact I used to refer to it purely as a
‘happening’. I used to write short stories, by the way, which was ok. But the
novel for me is a strange territory – it still is – and I turned to it at that particular
time because it was not possible for me to function in the theatre. Then, again,
Season of Anomywas written at a period when it was (also) not possible for me
to function in the theatre. So I don’t consider myself a novelist. And the novel
form for me is not a very congenial form.
It would be difficult to get a more frank admission of the limits im-
posed by generic imperatives on his otherwise unquestionably impressive