| Kongi's Harvest | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | Wole Soyinka |
| Date premiered | 1965 |
| Place premiered | Negro Arts Festival (Dakar) |
Kongi's Harvest is a 1965 play written by Wole Soyinka. It premiered in Dakar, Senegal, at the first Negro Arts Festival in April 1966. [1] It was later adapted as a film of the same name, directed by the American Ossie Davis. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
The play was published in 1967 in London and New York by Oxford University Press (Three Crowns Books; 96 pp).
President Kongi, the dictator of an African developing nation, is trying to modernize after deposing King Oba Danlola, who is being held in detention. Kongi demands that Danlola present him with a ceremonial yam at a state dinner to indicate his abdication. Daodu, Danlola's nephew and heir, grows prized yams on his farm.
Daodu's lover Segi owns a bar where Daodu spends most of his time. She is revealed to have been Kongi's former lover.
As the different tribes are resisting unification, Kongi tries to reach his goal by any means necessary, including forcing government officials to wear traditional African outfits and seeking advice from the man he deposed. In a climactic scene at the state dinner, Segi presents Kongi with the head of her father.
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka Hon. FRSL, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, for "in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
A Dance of the Forests is one of the most recognized of Wole Soyinka's plays. It was "presented at the Nigerian Independence celebrations in 1960, it ... denigrated the glorious African past and warned Nigerians and all Africans that their energies henceforth should be spent trying to avoid repeating the mistakes that have already been made." At the time of its release, it was an iconoclastic work that angered many of the elite in Soyinka's native Nigeria. Politicians were particularly incensed at Soyinka's prescient portrayal of post-colonial Nigerian politics as aimless and corrupt. Despite the deluge of criticism, the play remains an influential work. In it, Soyinka espouses a unique vision for a new Africa, one that is able to forge a new identity free from the influence of European imperialism.
Raiford Chatman "Ossie" Davis was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death. He and his wife were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame; were awarded the National Medal of Arts and were recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994.
Ruby Dee was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. She originated the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun (1961). Her other notable film roles include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and Do the Right Thing (1989).
The Strong Breed is one of the best-known plays by Wole Soyinka. It is a tragedy that ends with an individual sacrifice for the sake of a community's benefit. The play is centered on the tradition of egungun, a Yoruba festival tradition in which a scapegoat of the village carries out the evil of the community and is exiled from the civilization.
Onyeka Nwelue is a Nigerian writer and filmmaker.
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Madmen and Specialists is a play by Wole Soyinka, conceived in 1970 during his imprisonment in the Nigerian Civil War. The play, Soyinka's eighth, has close links to the Theatre of the Absurd. Abiola Irele called it "a nightmarish image of our collective life as it appears to a detached and reflective consciousness". It was published in London 1971 by Methuen and in New York in 1972 by Hill & Wang.
Kongi's Harvest is a 1970s Nigerian drama film directed by Ossie Davis. The film was adapted from a screenplay by Wole Soyinka adapted from his 1965 play of the same name. Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright, poet, and the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, also starred in the leading role as the dictator of an African nation.
Chief Wale OgunyemiListen, OFR was a Nigerian veteran seasoned dramatist, film actor, prolific playwright, and Yoruba language scholar
Jimi SolankeListen is a Nigerian film actor, dramatist, folk singer, poet and playwright.
Aké: The Years of Childhood is a 1981 memoir by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka.
Tunji OyelanaListen is a multi-award-winning Nigerian musician, actor, folk singer, composer and once a lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Tunji Oyelana is of the Yoruba ethnic group and is a native of Nigeria. Most of Tunji Oyelana's songs are in Yoruba. In the early 1980s, he teamed up with Nigeria's first and only winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka, to record a musical album that satirized the corruption of the Nigerian political elite. He was the musician for Stéphane Breton's 1994 film Un dieu au bord de la route. Oyelana is credited with having sold the most albums by a Nigerian High Life musicians. In 2012 he released A Nigerian Retrospective 1966-79, an album from Soundway Records. Apart from Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade, Oyelana is regarded as one of the most played Yoruba musicians. He and Soyinka composed I Love My Country and, in 1996, were both charged with treason and forced into exile by Sani Abacha while touring internationally with Soyinka's play The Beatification of Area Boy. Oyelana, the leader of The Benders currently lives in the United Kingdom.
The Interpreters is a novel by Wole Soyinka, first published in London by André Deutsch in 1965 and later republished as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. It is the first and one of the only three novels written by Soyinka; he is principally known as a playwright. The novel was written in English and later translated into a number of languages.
Golden Age or Golden era are terms used in Nigerian film history to designate the motion picture industry of Nigeria from the late 1950s to the late 1980s. It captures the mode of visual and sound production, as well as the method of distribution employed during this period. This period began with the formal recognition of the Nigerian Film Unit as a sector in 1954, with the first film entirely copyrighted to this unit being Fincho (1957) by Sam Zebba.
Ripples Nigeria is a Nigerian online newspaper based in Lagos. It was launched in 2015. It is an independent, pro-investigation multi-media online news platform focused primarily on politics, policy and economy.
Walter Lambert Muparutsa was a Zimbabwean writer and pioneering theatre practitioner.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is a 2021 novel by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. It is his third novel, and his first since Season of Anomy in 1973.
The 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence." He is the first African recipient of the prize.
Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman is a 2022 Yoruba-language Nigerian historical drama film directed by Biyi Bandele and distributed by Netflix, based on Wole Soyinka'sDeath and the King's Horseman, a stage play he wrote while in Cambridge, where he was a fellow at Churchill College during his political exile from Nigeria, and it is based on a real incident that took place in Yorubaland during British Colonial rule. The film stars Odunlade Adekola as the titular character, with Shaffy Bello, Brymo, Deyemi Okanlawon, Omowunmi Dada, Jide Kosoko, Langley Kirkwood, Joke Silva amongst others in supporting roles.
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