Surviving by Words

...An imagined slight" But the phrase "the man died" reappears so frequently in the book that one suspects it was a nightmare Soymka must often have had, a fear that the man in him would die While in prison, Soyinka had to fight the psychologically emasculating acts of the guards in order to remain a free, thinking individual Heavy chains were placed on his feet, removed, replaced, then removed again He was presented with a gift of his book of poems, Idanre, only to have it abruptly confiscated When his wife came to visit--she was permitted to see him only once during his 10 months in solitary--he was given a haircut, a new set of clothes, a radio, a typewriter, bond paper, carbon paper, pen and pencils Immediately after she left, everything was whisked away (Soymka knew the raid was coming and did not allow himself to play the radio Yet he could not remain impassive to the typing paper, which he recalls stroking and caressing ) Besides direct psychological tortures, Soymka had to combat the long days and mghts of isolation Fasting helped him to "control the debris of memory," "infections of the mind,' although there were times when he feared the end On the sixth day of one fast he saw the face of Adolf Hitler peering through a hole in the Wailing Wall, the next evening he had a vision of Albert Schweitzer But writing, always writing--on whatever scrap of paper he could secretly lay his hands on--kept him alive At the conclusion of the war in early 1970, the Federal Government released Soyinka He had been in prison for more than two years, and no charges had ever been brought against him Nonetheless, General Gowon relayed a message through one of Soyinka's friends that the writer should let "bygones be bygones " Following such an experience, of course, it would be difficult for any man to forgive his tormentors Almost four years later, Soyinka is willing to admit that he felt the sympathy detainees often feel for their murderers, but he ignores the question of forgiveness Like Go-won, he wants to move on, though for a different reason--he cannot let the past paralyze him Be that as it may, the memory of Soyinka's harrowing prison stay is frozen in this book The form of The Man Died is difficult It has a structure, the beginning, middle and end of his confinement, yet it lacks transitions Soyinka may have felt a fragmentary journal retained the immediacy of his original notes And curiously, the tone of the volume is muted, impassive, as if Soyinka could not quite believe the enormity of what was happening A sense of the observer observing himself suffuses all the pages, even where brilliant passages light up the writing, the passive color dominates One can only hope that Soyinka's incarceration has not trampled and weaned him down, for his sense of fluidity, of invention, and of the joyousness of life have been his trademarks He has always been the champion of change within the bounds of order, of active role playing m an animistic and material world Paradoxically, Soyinka became the implacable enemy of absolutists because of his constant attention to compromise, tradition and innovation (He was among the first to object to the misappropriation of "negritude," that concept of the African soul-in-being, the unique core of blackness in any black person, and his remark, "A tiger does not have to proclaim his tigritude,' has often been quoted as a rallying cry of opposition to the idea Yet here again he has been misunderstood, for he admits the notion contains a possible truth, he simply refuses to join the easy crowd of shibboleth-swinging nationalists who use negritude as a separatist club ) His play Madmen and Specialists and the poems in A Shuttle in the Crvpt, parts of which he wrote while in prison, lead one to be optimistic about Soyinka's continuing growth, and his continuing energy He may be bitter at times, and wounded at others, but he is impelled to go on That sense of purpose is given its credo in his poem "Journey' I never feel I have arrived, though I come To journey's end I never feel I have arrived Though love and welcome snare me home Usurpers hand my cup at every Feast a last supper...

...To make matters worse, Soyinka could not be labeled a partisan by the authorities, since he was not a secessionist Ibo His family were Yoiuba, and he had spent most of his life in Lagos, the Nigerian capital Thus the Gowon regime tried to woo him to its cause, or simply to the fence of silence But Soyinka was unwilling to become a quiet observer during a civil war Conscience impelled him to speak out, which in turn led to his imprisonment and to this book In The Man Died Soyinka rails against the Western concept of tragedy--and particularly Oedipus--believing it to be a sop offered by those in power He sees people's acceptance of the tragic hero as an indulgence in sentimentality to disguise their revulsion against certain types of men and women populating the universe He points out, for example, that Oedipus had to blind himself before his regenerative state could begin Oedipus could not be allowed to make amends as a whole man Does Soyinka, then, not wish others to see his experience as "tragic"' Noble and often obstreperous he suffered the consequences of his personality Did the fault belong to him' Soyinka ponders these questions, among many others, in his prison record Federal officials apparently feared Soymka's dangerous idea-mongering because alter trying flattery and bribery to win him over, they placed him m solitary confinement for 10 months Restricted to a narrow, high-ceilinged cell across from those reserved for lunatics, Soyinka heard the cries of a man in pain for nights on end When the cries stopped he felt bereft--he sensed that he might break down--and against his self-imposed code, he spoke to his guard, asking what had happened to the inmate The guard replied "The man died " This exchange was merely one of several incidents that give the book its name Soyinka explains that in the course of putting his notes together, the volume's format and title changed at least a dozen times Finally, one morning, as he was almost at the end of his labors, a cable arrived stating "The man died " The man m that case, was Segun Sowemimo, a Nigerian journalist who was "brutally beaten, he and other colleagues, by soldiers on the orders of a Military Governor of the West The reason...

...Surviving by Words The Man Died: Prison Notes By Wole Soyinka Harper & Row 315 pp $8 95 Reviewed by Martin Tucker Author, "Africa in Modern Literature", editor, "Confrontation" The "poised" historian, as Wole Soyinka calls him, may someday be able to unravel all the skeins of the three-year Nigerian Civil War and thread them into a balanced narrative, but meanwhile he presents his personal record of 27 months spent in a Federal Government prison The account is a crazy quilt of misunderstanding, bureaucratic inanities, ego-ridden rivalries, and blanket paranoia Soyinka's role in the struggle began while he was visiting New York, seeking financial support for African movies During a conversation with an American businessman he urged neutrality in the Federal Government-Biafran dispute, and asked that war materiel not be sent to either side, later he lobbied at the UN for a cessation of arms sales to his divided country After returning home, Soyinka met both with Colonel Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Biafran chief of state, and with officials of Yakubu Gowon's Federal Government These attempts at evenhandedness and conciliation made him a thorn in the Federal Government's side For Soyinka--outspoken, witty, often maddeningly reasonable--was no ordinary citizen or politician He was the most famous Nigerian writer in the world His plays had been performed in the capitals of Europe, Africa and North America His novel, The Interpreters, had been hailed as a masterpiece His poems were anthologized m almost every collection of African poetry, and his critical essays and journalism were easily devoured by hosts of readers Clearly he was a man whom those m power had to reckon with...