A dazzling memoir of an African childhood from Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian novelist, playwright, and poet Wole Soyinka.

Aké: The Years of Childhood gives us the story of Soyinka's boyhood before and during World War II in a Yoruba village in western Nigeria called Aké. A relentlessly curious child who loved books and getting into trouble, Soyinka grew up on a parsonage compound, raised by Christian parents and by a grandfather who introduced him to Yoruba spiritual traditions. His vivid evocation of the colorful sights, sounds, and aromas of the world that shaped him is both lyrically beautiful and laced with humor and the sheer delight of a child's-eye view. A classic of African autobiography, Aké is also a transcendantly timeless portrait of the mysteries of childhood.

  • WINNER | 1986
    Nobel Prize
  • WINNER | 1983
    Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
"A lovely, magical book." --The Washington Post

"A brilliant imagist who uses poetry and drama to convey his inquisitiveness, frustration, and sense of wonder." --Newsweek

Brilliant. . . . Transcendant. . . . It locates the lost child in all of us, underneath language, inside sound and smell, wide-eyed, brave and flummoxed. . . . Soyinka belongs in the company of . . . V. S. Naipaul, V. S. Pritchett, and Vladimir Nabokov." --The New York Times

"A delightful memoir." --The Atlantic

"Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer and arguably her finest. . . . Ake is a classic of African autobiography, indeed a classic of childhood memoirs wherever and whenever produced." --The New York Times Book Review
© Glen Gratty
WOLE SOYINKA was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1934, he is an author, playwright, poet, and political activist whose prolific body of work includes The Interpret­ers, his debut novel that was published in 1965, and Death and the King's Horseman, a play that was first performed in 1976. So­yinka was twice jailed in Nigeria for his crit­icism of the Nigerian government, and he destroyed his U.S. Green Card in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. View titles by Wole Soyinka

About

A dazzling memoir of an African childhood from Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian novelist, playwright, and poet Wole Soyinka.

Aké: The Years of Childhood gives us the story of Soyinka's boyhood before and during World War II in a Yoruba village in western Nigeria called Aké. A relentlessly curious child who loved books and getting into trouble, Soyinka grew up on a parsonage compound, raised by Christian parents and by a grandfather who introduced him to Yoruba spiritual traditions. His vivid evocation of the colorful sights, sounds, and aromas of the world that shaped him is both lyrically beautiful and laced with humor and the sheer delight of a child's-eye view. A classic of African autobiography, Aké is also a transcendantly timeless portrait of the mysteries of childhood.

Awards

  • WINNER | 1986
    Nobel Prize
  • WINNER | 1983
    Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

Reviews

"A lovely, magical book." --The Washington Post

"A brilliant imagist who uses poetry and drama to convey his inquisitiveness, frustration, and sense of wonder." --Newsweek

Brilliant. . . . Transcendant. . . . It locates the lost child in all of us, underneath language, inside sound and smell, wide-eyed, brave and flummoxed. . . . Soyinka belongs in the company of . . . V. S. Naipaul, V. S. Pritchett, and Vladimir Nabokov." --The New York Times

"A delightful memoir." --The Atlantic

"Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer and arguably her finest. . . . Ake is a classic of African autobiography, indeed a classic of childhood memoirs wherever and whenever produced." --The New York Times Book Review

Author

© Glen Gratty
WOLE SOYINKA was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1934, he is an author, playwright, poet, and political activist whose prolific body of work includes The Interpret­ers, his debut novel that was published in 1965, and Death and the King's Horseman, a play that was first performed in 1976. So­yinka was twice jailed in Nigeria for his crit­icism of the Nigerian government, and he destroyed his U.S. Green Card in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. View titles by Wole Soyinka