Visionary mythopoesis in fictional and nonfictional prose Ashtabula!” This is whyIsara, the memoir, is Soyinka’s most densely struc-
tured, and ingeniously textured prose work, for neitherAk ́enorIbadanhas
an “Ashtabula” as a social imaginary which powerfully encodes perspec-
tives that might enable breaking free of narrow, bounded and constrain-
ing horizons for the elites of colonized (and neocolonial) spaces. And
indeed, it requires a careful labor of textual exegesis to track the com-
plexity which Soyinka infuses into his depiction of this Isara-Ashtabula
continuum.
Very early in the narrative ofIsarawe are allowed a glimpse into the
thoughts which the name “Ashtabula” has provoked in Yode Soditan,
the fictionalized name of the author’s father:
It had taken quite a while before the schoolteacher brought himself to accept
the word as yet another place-name. Like Isara. Or Kaura Namoda. That had
made him pause. What would the natives of Ashtabula think of that one? Or
Olomitutu? How did it sound in their ears? Even so, as a name for white people –
Ashtabula? This hand from beyond the seas had stretched the bounds of place-
naming beyond easy acceptance. What spirits had presided over the naming
ceremonies of such a place? A settlement was no different from a child, you
recognized its essence in the name. That was the problem – there was nothing
remotely European about the name Ashtabula! Or were Americans now far
removed from white stock and breeding? (Isara,)
The silent disquisition on naming and identity in this passage is not the
familiar one in contemporary critical theory on the vital link between
hegemonic consolidation of power and its almost limitless capacity to
entrench itself through the capacity to “own” things and control rela-
tionships by acts of naming;rather, Yode’s thoughts here belong to an
older Yoruba tradition embedded in Ifa divinatory lore which sees nam-
ing things, people and relationships “correctly” and “appropriately” as
flexibly linked to essence and fate.It is this premise which leads Yode to
conjecture that Ashtabula couldnotpossibly be a white American place-
name, unless of course white Americans had totally cut themselves off
from their natal stock in the “old countries” in Europe. But then that other
conception of naming and identity in contemporary cultural criticism
which hinges on power and domination is very much part of the delib-
erately ludic ensemble of tropes on naming that feature so extensively
inIsara. This particular conception actually structures the tensions and
antagonisms in the following passage from the fifth chapter of the work,
titled “Homecoming” where “home” stands for many things: Isara, the
natal village; locally produced goods and services in competition with