Lalita Panicker, Consulting Editor, Views picks her favourite read of 2021

It took the pandemic-induced lockdown for Nigeria’s prodigiously talented writer Wole Soyinka to write a third novel, a staggering 48 years after his second one Season of Anomy. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (Bloomsbury Publishing) is set in a country very much like his native Nigeria and my childhood home for some years. I started the book wondering if the 87-year-old novelist, essayist, satirist, playwright and ferocious activist may have lost his luminescent touch. The answer is, no he has not. In fact, like good wine, his incomparable prose has only got better with age. This is a book you cannot afford to overlook. So read it as soon as you can.

He writes in the ironically-titled book about the rot, corruption and inertia which have set in this imaginary Nigeria. On a vast and sometimes bewildering canvas, he etches the story of a sinister society dealing in body parts for sacrifice seemingly run by prominent political and religious leaders. While the country forms the larger backdrop, the story revolves around four friends who call themselves the Gong of Four. The novel mercilessly cuts through the venal politics of the land with its deadly cocktail of religion, murder, opportunism, sloth and amorality and superstition.

The Gong of Four are Duyole Pitan-Payne, an engineer and Kighare Menka a surgeon and two other students, all of whom return from London after their studies to make a difference to their homeland. Eventually, one disappears, one is thrown in prison, Duyole leaves for the UN and Menka becomes the go-to doctor specialising in treating victims of terror which abounds in the suffocating and violent country. The rot in society is represented by Papa Davina, a false prophet and a creepy, ambitious politician and head of state, Sir Goddie whose People on the Move Party (POMP) should have been the target of mirth had there not been enough suggestions that he, along with Papa Davina, could be involved in the macabre body parts enterprise.

As you read on, you wonder how, in a world of thin-skinned, authoritarian political establishments, especially in Nigeria, which is clearly the country he is aiming his laser focus on, Soyinka is tolerated. It is clear that his legend goes far beyond the petty ruling class, he floats above the fray. The book is like a complex symphony; if you miss a single cadence, you will find yourself floundering. In my mind, this is his most outstanding novel, perhaps his final assault on a corrupt system which has crushed the potential of his great nation. Soyinka, as he has done all his life, will not give up the good fight. As he once said, “I know I’ve announced a number of times I’m withdrawing from public life. And I meant it. For about 24 hours.” This gives us hope that the best of Soyinka may be yet to come.