Research in African Literatures

Wise, Christopher, 1961-
Ken Saro-Wiwa: A Bio-Critical Study, and: Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist (review)
Research in African Literatures - Volume 32, Number 1, Spring 2001, pp. 131-134

Indiana University Press

Christopher Wise - Ken Saro-Wiwa: A Bio-Critical Study, and: Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist (review) - Research in African Literatures 32:1 Research in African Literatures 32.1 (2001) 131-134 Book Review Ken Saro-Wiwa: A Bio-Critical Study Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist Ken Saro-Wiwa: A Bio-Critical Study, by Femi Ojo-Ade. New York: Africana Legacy, 1999. xxiv + 330 pp. ISBN 0-9663837-1-0. Distributed by African Books Collective, Ltd., 27 Park End Street, Oxford, OX1 1HU; http://www.africanbookscollective.com Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist, ed. Craig W. McLuckie and Aubrey McPhail. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000. xi + 289 pp. ISBN 0-89410-883-2 cloth. Two starkly contrasting assessments of Ken Saro-Wiwa have recently appeared in print, Craig McLuckie and Aubrey McPhail's Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist and Femi Ojo-Ade's Ken Saro-Wiwa: A Bio-Critical Study. If both volumes reveal the paradoxical affiliations that shaped Saro-Wiwa's life and writings, offering portraits of an amazingly energetic and complex human being, they nonetheless draw surprisingly different conclusions about the meaning of Saro-Wiwa's state-ordered murder and the tragic events surrounding it. The McLuckie-McPhail study situates Saro-Wiwa's execution within a global context, drawing out the wider implications of his killing, whereas...