Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth

A black-humoured satire of contemporary Nigeria

Telegraph

Chronicles is a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one … A triumph

Guardian

This is an extraordinary novel that is both in and of Nigeria. It contains elements of Yoruba culture and, in the middle of it all, is a gourd full of satire, humor and pathos. It is a chronicle of human folly among the happiest people on earth. The writing alone is a wonder and a fitting coda for the career of this great writer

New York Journal of Books

Inspiring and original ... Soyinka's analysis of the 20th century problem of memory and forgiveness in the African world is both timely and important. Soyinka's analysis of the problem is an initial volley in what will surely become a 21st century debate

New York Times Book Review

A satire, a murder mystery, a political novel, a work of sustained stylistic brio, and may be one of the few genuine literary surprises of 2021 … Soyinka finally delivers his magnum opus on the state of his homeland

Ben Okri, Financial Times

With caustic wit, Soyinka’s carnivalesque depictions of venality ferret out hypocrisy from behind its elaborate guises and condemn crimes that challenge “the collective notion of soul".

New Yorker

He employs characteristically flamboyant language in a devastatingly detailed examination of Nigerian society

TLS

Chronicles is many things at once: a caustic political satire, a murder mystery, a conspiracy story and a deeply felt lament for the spirit of a nation ... For all its sarcastic undertones, for all its puns and plays on names, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a pessimistic novel, the work of a man with no illusions

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, New York TImes

Wole Soyinka is a legendary writer … He has inspired generations of writers worldwide … Wole draws on his lifetime steeped in resistance for his new novel, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. The title is ironic. It’s a caustic, satirical takedown of corruption in a country not unlike his native Nigeria

Kirsty Wark, Newsnight

Swaggering and scabrous, at once a verbal spree and a fierce assault on totalitarianism

Observer

A whodunnit that turns into a searing indictment of modern Nigeria

i paper

A caustic satire

Daily Mail

A savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria’s political elite and a provocative call to arms from one of the country’s most relentless political activists and an international literary giant

The Voice

Soyinka … Is the tour guide for the last sixty years of Nigerian history and there is so much to see … bursting with humour and irony

Litro

Back with a roar … Kafkaesque … A shocking, scathing and gripping look at society and human behaviour all in one

Shiny New Books

A juggernaut of a novel … Bold and chaotic, it is somehow of the moment ... This is literature of the dynamic kind, fed not so much by carefully honed craft as by a profound, urgent energy: both cry for help and call to arms; a response, a lament, a reckoning

Lunate.co.uk

PRAISE FOR WOLE SOYINKA: You don't see things the same when you encounter a voice like that.

Toni Morrison

He is one of the best there is today, a poet and thinker who knows both how the world actually works and how the world should work.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Wole Soyinka is a giant of modern literature.

Robert McFarlane

To have contained in the body of his work the fullness of individual vision, the potency of myth, the corruptions of power, and the misery of the oppressed, is a rare feat.

Ben Okri