The Writer as a Prophet and Social Reformer

                Soyinka’s The Interpreters was published in 1964 and was a recommended title for A’ 

Level students of Literature in English of those days. Somebody rightly compared the work with James Joyce’s Ulysses. 

                Soyinka’s dream for the greatness of a newly born nation Nigeria was vivid and clear. He saw in the dream a country devoid of corruption, nepotism, tribalism, pretension to any ideology and elitist hypocrisy, especially as could be seen exhibited in aping the British. He saw a nation where the young intellectuals had the freedom to unleash the power of the mind; he saw the ability of the young turks in their different skills and professions that must be left unfettered to flourish in order to pursue and overtake the world. He saw so far to those youngsters as well as to the leadership of the country that must shun the dominance of foreign culture and embrace Africa. But then, the realities stared him in the face and he woke up to fight the prevalence of corruption and the other ills in th society. He rose up with his bazooka of satire. By the time he was through with the Chief Winsalas, the Sir Derins, -  the Ex-Judge whom he de-robbed and stripped naked even in death -  the fastidious Faseyis, the phonetic affecting Oguazors and the hypocrite Dr. Lumoyes of this world and their ilks in the Nigeria setting of the sixties, few years after independence, these characters of the novel, they were battered and badgered.

What makes The Interpreters especially unique among the novels of that age was that it was about the sophisticated elites of the society. To be able to get along with this novel then, one must be able to pry into the great minds of those men who had returned from the Western world – young and virile, as they say. Today, I cannot but wonder how the author feels about his predictions of more than five decades ago that have come to pass in their various forms.

 He is today still active in writing articles full of wisdom and counsels. It is like he has been telling himself, It is not yet time to rest. Th, to me, is is a blessing of a kind because as a boy myself in those days, I was not privileged to lay my hands on his writings; but now, he comes often in this or that intervention, thanks to the Internet and such papers like the Sahara Reporters and Premium Times Nigeria.