wole soyinka books the lion and the jewel

As a Westerner myself, I started out with the preconceived notion that modernization would be a beneficial change but by the end of the play, I was not so sure. The village is still traditional in its daily life but one senses that it is on the verge of change. The headman of the village, 'the lion', is in his 60s and has several wives and concubines already but can pay. The play deals with the conflict between traditional ways and modernization for example, should a man pay a bride price in order to marry? The young schoolmaster, a believer in Western culture, wants to marry 'the jewel' Sidi but doesn't want to pay her bride price claiming it is old-fashioned (though the reader/viewer is also left with the impression that he can't afford it!).

Soyinka’s play is not only a great example of storytelling, but also the epitome of Africa’s collective progression towards the future, and one which is worth the read.A thought-provoking play by the first African author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Taking place in Ilujinle, a Yoruba village in Nigeria, the play is interwoven, now more than ever, with the essence of Nigerian culture and their struggles with finding a balance between adopting certain Western attitudes and maintaining cultural traditions intact. These two concepts take the form of village chief Baroka, the titular ‘lion’, and civilized teacher Lakunle, respectively, as they both woo the beautiful ‘jewel’ Sidi. The Lion and the Jewel tells the story of a very important clash of ideologies that has been of special interest in the whole African continent during the 20th century: the idea of tradition vs. Soyinka at the time was not yet a Nobel Laureate like he is today (he received the honor in 1986), but works like this one were certainly contributors to his eventual nomination. One of them is Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel, a 1959 stage play that, even though written in English, is intrinsically African.

That’s why I did some research and found many worthwhile works of theater that came from non-European sources.

Read Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka’s Classic Play “The Lion and the Jewel”Īs a playwright I have immense appreciation for many Western classics, ranging from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, but I always felt a lack of diversity when it came to the playwrights’ nationalities.

Wole soyinka books the lion and the jewel