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The moving last memoir of the outspoken critic of the Nigerian regime and international oil companies he held responsible for the destruction of his homeland-who lost his life in the campaign for the basic rights fo the Ogoni people of Nigeria.
This collection of newspaper columns and articles mostly written in the 1970s and 1980s perhaps provides the best overview of Saro-Wiwa's political and environmental concerns. The articles document his concerns about the fate of the Ogoni people and their mistreatment by multinational oil companies and collaborating Nigerian government. Saro-Wiwa argues that the Ogoni are a minority in Nigeria, exploited by the ruling ethnic majority, and that the Federal Government of Nigeria was threatening the Ogoni with genocide. At the time, this was a key publication in bringing the Ogoni tragedy to the attention of the international community. Nowadays, it is of continual relevance to present day concerns about the actions of the oil companies, indigenous and environmental rights in the Delta region.
The Ogoni crisis, which reached its peak in Nigeria in the 1990s, divided all the major stakeholders (namely, the Nigerian state, the multinational petroleum concerns, the Ogoni community, and the rest of the Nigerian populace) in the conflict. There were also undoubtedly other important ramifications within the Ogoni community, such as divisions along the lines of those who were pro-government and those who upheld an opposing stance. These divisions run deep and define the more subtle contours of the conflict amongst the Ogoni people who were once led by their indomitable leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa, until he was hanged by the General Sani Abacha regime in 1995. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s struggle exemplified certain core values and tenets, including democracy, minority rights, environmental awareness, non-violence and respect for human dignity. However, as he lived and worked in an antithetical political context governed by veniality, despotism and philistinism he was brutally cut down. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the Ogoni crisis and its unfolding aftermath.
"The authors examine Saro-Wiwa's literary output both in terms of literary criticism and within a political framework. They give equal attention to his more public roles, including public reaction within Nigeria to his work."--BOOK JACKET.
This book marks the 25th anniversary of the execution of Nigerian activist and written Ken Saro-Wiwa. The 21 essays, by international contributors, and 42 poems by new and established poets, are inspired by his ideals and activism. The volume includes contributions by people intimately connected with Saro-Wiwa. His brother Dr Owens Wiwa recounts how his older brother awakened and nurtured his awareness of the tremendous damage Royal Dutch Shell was doing to their homeland, in collaboration with the then Nigerian military government. His firsthand account of the brutality of the military government and its impact; his unsuccessful efforts to save the life of his brother; his time in hiding an...
A collection of nineteen darkly-comic short stories about life in Nigeria, by Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ogoni rights activist, who was executed in 1995 by the dictator Sani Abacha.
A “remarkable chronicle” of a journey back to this West African nation after years of exile (The New York Times Book Review). Noo Saro-Wiwa was brought up in England, but every summer she was dragged back to visit her father in Nigeria—a country she viewed as an annoying parallel universe where she had to relinquish all her creature comforts and sense of individuality. After her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was killed there, she didn’t return for several years. Then she decided to come to terms with the country her father given his life for. Traveling from the exuberant chaos of Lagos to the calm beauty of the eastern mountains; from the eccentricity of a Nigerian dog show to the ...
THESE LETTERS AND poems are invaluable fragments of a living conversation that portrays the indomitable power in humans to stay alive in the face of certain death, evoking such intense memories of his resolute struggles against an oil behemoth and a deaf autocratic government. It was his leadership that forced Shell out of Ogoni in 1993.
'My father. That's what this is all about. Where does he end and where do I begin?' Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed in November 1995. One of Nigeria's best-loved writers and an outspoken critic of military rule, he was a prime mover in bringing the human rights abuses of Shell Oil and the Nigerian military to the attention of the world. His death was headline news internationally. The name of Ken Saro-Wiwa became a potent symbol of the struggle between a traditional way of life and the juggernaut of global commercial interests. What was it like to grow up with such a politically active and socially conscious father? How do you come to terms with your father's imprisonment and execution? How do yo...
For a quarter of a century, Lemona has been held in a Nigerian prison, her crimes reflecting her passion and despair, her silence masking the truth. On the last day of her life she is visited by Ola, whose parents Lemona killed. To this woman Lemona recounts the events of her upbringing in poverty, the kindness of friends who took her in, and the abuse, corruption and betrayal by men which led to her downfall. though she is awaiting execution, Lemona's desire to understand the forces that shaped her life resonates throughout her story, leading Ola towards a new interpretation of her own history. -- Publisher description.