Nigerian playwright and Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has stated that despite the challenges facing the country, Nigerians are still managing to eke out a living. ayokinews.com reports
Speaking during an interview with Cable News Network (CNN), and commenting on the ironic title for his first novel in 48 years, “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth”, Soyinka said that many things happened as one grew up and witnessing the degrading of dreams and environment in one’s society including the continent.
Soyinka stated that for him the journey had been an arduous journey, saying “It has reached such a stage, i found intuitively, that only prose fiction can handle things that have been bubbling up inside me.”
Speaking on how he got the book title, Soyinka stated that the title came after some years ago after some people conducted a poll which placed Nigeria among the top four (4) happiest nations in the world.
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The playwright said, “That thing has been with me, in my head. I asked, ‘Who are these people? What do they know? What have they seen? What have they experienced in Nigeria that they make such an attribution?’ That title really has been waiting to answer that claim in many ways. When you look at the surroundings, everything is the opposite and yet, Nigeria is not a complete disaster.
“People still manage to eke out a living not only a living but to some extent a dignified and satisfied living. I think it’s not surface appearance of contentment or making the best of a really bad job, insisting that no matter what life must go on… It’s that which needed to be, quote and unquote, celebrated in addition to the bleak actualities.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/22/world/sunfish-ceuta-seville-enrique-ostale-scn-trnd/index.html
