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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The writer and the environment: the example of Ken Saro-Wiwa
Author:Teilanyo, DiriISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Okike: an African Journal of New Writing
Issue:49
Pages:48-63
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:literature
political action
About person:K.B. Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995)ISNI
Abstract:Ken Saro-Wiwa was both a writer and an environmentalist, campaigning against the degradation of the lands and waters in the oil-producing Ogoni area in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria and for the environmental and minority rights of the Ogoni people. The relationship between Saro-Wiwa the environmental crusader or minority rights activist, and Saro-Wiwa, the literary artist, is explored in the present article. Analysis of the subject and style of Saro-Wiwa's prose fiction and poetry indicates that Saro-Wiwa as an artist was one and the same person as Saro-Wiwa the environmental and minority rights campaigner. His political actions were only an extension or a different dimension of a crusade he had been waging in his literature. His literary campaign was a prelude and an impetus to his political action. The author concludes with two questions for debate: How potent can literature ever be as an instrument of sociopolitical engineering? Should a professional literary artist ever be involved in political action and risk his life in the way Saro-Wiwa did? Bibliogr. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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