This is the extraordinary and moving account of Ken Saro-Wiwa's period of detention in 1993, and is also a personal history of the man who gave voice to the campaign for basic human and political rights for the Ogoni people. It was fear of his success that made Saro-Wiwa the target of the despotic Nigerian military regime. Arrested on 21 June 1993, ostensibly for his part in election-day disturbances, he describes in harrowing detail the conditions under which he was held. He writes of his involvement with the Ogoni cause and his instrumental role in the setting up of the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people.

A Month and a Day

Saro-Wiwa, Ken

Biographies & Memoirs

Penguin Books, Ltd.

This is the extraordinary and moving account of Ken Saro-Wiwa's period of detention in 1993, and is also a personal history of the man who gave voice to the campaign for basic human and political rights for the Ogoni people. It was fear of his success that made Saro-Wiwa the target of the despotic Nigerian military regime. Arrested on 21 June 1993, ostensibly for his part in election-day disturbances, he describes in harrowing detail the conditions under which he was held. He writes of his involvement with the Ogoni cause and his instrumental role in the setting up of the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people.

A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary

Community & Culture

Penguin??Books

This title is part of the Longman African Writers series

Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English

Literature & Fiction

United States

Pearson College Div

A Forest of Flowers is a collection of nineteen short stories which explore the absurdity of life for characters whose ambitions, modest as they are, are constantly thwarted by disgruntled spirits - in the form of idle and corrupt officials, adulterous spouses, envious relatives and grasping, untrustworthy entrepreneurs. Through a series of episodes, seemingly parochial and small scale, a nation is shown cracking up under the pressures of maladministration, corporate greed, sloth, ignorance and mercenary self-interest, while its people struggle against government neglect and abuse, racketeering, poverty, disease, superstition and ethnic mistrust.

A Forest of Flowers (Longman African Writers Series)

History & Criticism

Longman

This new edition gives an insight into Ken Saro-Wiwa’s ideology, his own record of arrest in July 1993 and imprisonment, the story of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the struggle against the multinational Shell, the Nigerian military dictatorship, his criticisms and questioning of a corrupt regime which eventually led to his execution with eight others on 10 November 1995 and includes ‘A Letter to my Father’ by Ken Wiwa Jnr. If you want to know why Saro-Wiwa was hanged, read this book!

A Month and A Day & Letters

Leaders & Notable People

Ayebia Clarke Publishing

Sozaboy

Genre Fiction

Apollo

The folk tales reflect the occupations of the Ogoni - fishing, farming and hunting; and give insight into the customs and observances of their society. Their penchant for satire and the comic are displayed, together with the values of their civilization. The centre of most of the stories is Kuru, the Tortoise, known for his cunning and wisdom, who recognises the supreme intelligence of the oracle.

The Singing Anthill: Ogoni Folk Tales

Saros International Publishers

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.

Genocide in Nigeria

History

Africa

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. Reading through the treasure trove of the letters and poems compiled here as The Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa evoked such intense memories of his resolute struggles against an oil behemoth and a deaf autocratic government. His crusade frames one of the most tumultuous periods of Nigeria's history; his tragic story evokes anger and demands action to resolve the crises that first led the Ogoni people to demand that Shell clean up Ogoni or clear out of the territory. It was his leadership, in great part, that forced Shell out of Ogoni in January 1993. The letters are a testament of hope. Being one side of robust conversations between two persons that many would find unlikely as close friends, we learn the lessons that indeed 'friends love at all times and brothers (and sisters) are born for adversity', as a proverb in the Bible states. This is where we must applaud Sister Majella McCarron for preserving and making public these letters that Ken Saro-Wiwa wrote to her between 20 October 1993 and 14 September 1995. The collection includes essays by the three editors, select bibliography and recommended resources.

Silence Would Be Treason: The Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa

Essays & Correspondence

Daraja Press

A unique collection of the last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa that reveals the indomitable mind and spirit of the legendary campaigner for justice in the last months before his execution. The letters and poems collected here are the last writings of a man on trial for his life. They were smuggled out of military detention in food baskets.. Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, facing execution by the military regime on trumped-up charges, corresponded extensively with Irish nun and solidarity worker Majella McCarron during the last 18 months of his life. Clear and direct, these letters and poems are the last expression of a voice the regime was determined to silence: a voice for indigenous rights, environmental survival and democracy, many of whose battles were won despite his death and whose voice comes alive today again in these extraordinary letters. Saro-Wiwa was a leading figure in the world of Nigerian and African letters, as novelist, playwright, non-fiction writer, author of children's books and television writer. He was also a major figure in Nigerian politics, when his support for the autonomy of his own, indigenous Ogoni people led to his removal from office. Following this Saro-Wiwa threw himself into business to provide the financial basis for the movement which from 1990 took the shape of MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. MOSOP raised not only the issue of indigenous autonomy but also that of environmental survival in the face of massive oil and gas extraction in the Niger Delta and the associated oil leaks, gas flaring and other environmental crises threatening traditional livelihoods in the area. This was a direct challenge to those who benefitted from the situation: the oil and gas multinationals and the Nigerian military government.

Silence Would Be Treason: Last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa

British & Irish

CODESRIA Conseil pour le Developpement de la Recherche Economique et Sociale en Afrique

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