Reading Week 16: Soyinka, Part A

Wolf Soyinka:

- 1934 to present
- Political activist and playwrite
- Draws from Yoruba tradition, using Yoruba folktales and performance styles


Death and the King's Horsemen:

-Main character is Elesin, the King's Horseman
- It is believed by his people that when the king dies, the king's horseman must commit ritual suicide to accompany him in death, and serve as his guide to the afterlife
- Elesin intends to do it but at the last minute a British colonial ruler stops him because he thinks the ritual is barbaric
- The people are outraged and tragedies follow such as the suicide of Elesin's son Olunde, who kills himself in an attempt to restore his family's honor and restore the cosmic balance
- Elesin ends up killing himself anyway, but it is implied that this is not enough to save his soul or the world

Toni Morrison:

- 1931 to present
- Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, took the name of Saint Anthony (later shortened to Toni) as her middle name and began going by it when she started writing.
- Nobel laureate who combines the supernatural with the real to emphasize the influence of the past on the present, similar to magical realism.
- Her writing focuses on the impact of racial and gender discrimination on society. Post modernist.
- Influenced by African American oral and literary traditions.

Recitatif:

- Morrison's only short story. The title refers to the passages of a narrative or dialogue that are sung in the rhythm of ordinary speech instead of as formal songs.
- Narrator is a girl named Twyla, the story focuses on her friendship with a girl she meets named Roberta at an orphanage near New York City.
- Both girls have mothers that cannot take care of them. Twyla's mother "dances all night" and Roberta's mom is sick.
- The girls are different races, but it never specifies what race they are.
- Eventually they go back to their moms, but they continue to cross paths throughout their lives.
- One day they meet while Roberta is picketing unfair bussing laws. They get into an argument over many things, one being that at the orphanage Twyla took part in bullying an old lady named Maggie. They disagree over whether or not she was black.
- In the end, they meet once more at a coffee shop. Neither of their mothers ever got better. The final line is Roberta breaking down, still unable to remember the Maggie situation correctly.

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