Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth

July 26, 2021
Nobel Prize winner Soyinka’s first novel in almost 50 years (after the essay collection Beyond Aesthetics) delivers a sharp-edged satire of his native Nigeria. The tone is set early, as an omniscient narrator caustically refers to the country as the home of “the Happiest People in the World,” a status bolstered by a Nigerian governor’s creation of “a Ministry of Happiness,” to be led by the governor’s spouse. Soyinka presents a dizzying array of characters and plotlines to bolster the notion that his country’s “success” is a facade built on corruption and lies. This is perhaps best illustrated by the story line involving Dr. Kighare Menka, a surgeon particularly adept at treating the victims of terror attacks. Menka’s approached by representatives of Primary Resources Management, dedicated to combating waste by maximizing “human resources.” Menka learns that behind the slogans is a business plan to obtain body parts for an affluent clientele, and that he’s viewed as a steady source for the limbs and organs the venture needs. Soyinka injects suspense as well with a whodunit plot. Those with a solid grounding in current Nigerian politics are most likely to pick up on allusions to events and personalities that will elude the lay reader. Still, the imaginatively satirical treatment of serious issues makes this engaging on multiple levels.

August 1, 2021
Nigerian playwright, poet, essayist, novelist, and activist Soyinka became the first Black and first Black African writer to win the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. In his first novel in nearly 50 years, Soyinka's brilliance shines in a dark, sardonic depiction of an imagined Nigeria where greed, duplicity, and corruption reign supreme. The story centers on Dr. Kighare Menka, a surgeon who makes the gruesome discovery that amputated body parts are disappearing from his hospital to be used for ritualistic purposes. Dr. Menka shares this horrific revelation with friend and renowned engineer Duyole Pitan-Payne, whose life, after learning this news, takes a tragic turn. Evangelist and religious guru Papa Davina seems to be involved in shadowy and mysterious ways. As the tale progresses, Soyinka's three characters become intertwined in a place where "the happiest people on earth" are actually exploited and, ultimately, commoditized. Soyinka's novel offers rich commentary on political corruption, crime, and profiteering in a narrative that requires deep and sustained focus to fully appreciate its cryptic characters, interweaving plot lines, complex themes, and sharp intricacies and ironies.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 24, 2021

When Nigeria's best and brightest, educated in the United Kingdom, return home eager to improve the lives of their fellow citizens, things often fall apart. Soyinka (The Interpreters) assails this phenomenon by probing the lives of four college friends: math genius Prince Badetona; engineer and future UN representative Duyole Petan-Payne; preeminent surgeon Dr. Kigare Menka; and Farodion, the clever, calculating one who vanished from their cohort. Over the decades, these idealistic men gain wealth and prestige, yet each is prevented from realizing his altruistic goals by seeming bad luck--or is it something darker? In stylistically lovely prose, Soyinka gleefully skewers the blatant corruption in Nigerian government, ridiculing the preening, posturing politicians and their sycophants who prevent good governance from succeeding. The medical establishment fares little better, and the novel's portrayal of Ekumenika (a fictionalized religion that's a mash-up of various Nigerian religious traditions) is scathing. References to the fake news media, the state of U.S. prisons, conniving families, and women's rights, or the lack thereof, are indicative of a writer whose passion is global as well as local. The question he poses: Are these challenges already insurmountable? VERDICT A lifelong political activist, essayist, playwright, poet, and teacher, Soyinka is the first African recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and this highly anticipated novel, his first in almost half a century, will be much sought after.--Sally Bissell, formerly at Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 15, 2021
A richly satirical novel, his first since 1973, by the Nigerian Nobel Prize winner. "The timing could not have been more thoughtfully ordained. Indeed--and he leant over to whisper confidentially to the surgeon during one of their meals together....'It was I who set fire to Hilltop Mansion, just to get you down in Badagry.' " There's a lot going on in Soyinka's shaggy dog yarn, its plot dense enough to rival anything by G�nter Grass. The speaker here is an engineer who has fallen afoul of the nation's prime minister, a propagandist wedded to the ironic slogan of Soyinka's title. His lifelong friend, a surgeon who specializes in amputations, now has rivals in child soldiers and Boko Haram terrorists, given to lopping off the limbs of presumed infidels out in the countryside. They're not the only bad actors: As Soyinka writes, the police and the Nigerian army are not shy themselves about relieving their victims of body parts, and then there are the usual grisly accidents and freelance acts of violence. Dr. Kighare Menka sighs, "I am only a surgeon. My specialization is to cut people up, after others have recommended that course of action." His engineer friend, Duyole Pitan-Payne, has much bigger ambitions for the good doctor, but alas, things go awry, as they always do. Soyinka's sprawling tale abounds in sly references to current events in Nigeria, and his targets are many, not least of them politicians and self-styled holy men with bigger ambitions still (says one of the latter, "The trouble with you...is diffidence, that illegitimate child of memory. Go for chutzpah!"). Everyone you'll encounter in these pages, including someone who just might be the devil himself, has ardent hopes and big dreams and no fear of stepping on others, such as one aide who wonders "why widows, widowers, and orphans did not simply lick their wounds and adopt appeasing attitudes towards their violators for the privilege of staying alive." Dazzling wordplay and subtle allusion mark this most welcome return to fiction.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.