i have not read the book, but from the review i recognize in much of the baffling meaninglesness an accurate representation of the nigerian story as i have known, lived and now follow it. great buildups and promise always have anticlimatic endings, logical and rational approaches, having failed repeatedly, are replaced by the methods of the madman and the thug, who seem to be the only ones thriving in the environment, so why not co-opt their value system and modus. soyinkas mistake was perhaps in writing the story at this point. nigeria is currently undergoing nationhoods equivalent of the atonal cacophony of the jazz band at tuneup (albeit for 45 years os so). how does one describe it meaningfully and why? p.s check out the link. the picture is grainy, but he is absolutely right about the small cast of characters. my wife also tends to be amaze at how everyone from lagos, a city of 14 million more or less seem to know everyone else. http://nigeriaworld.com/letters/0629993.html

The author mixes up issues: the return of artifacts taken by former colonial powers is an emotive and complicated issue, one which is not helped by the type of condescension that Soyinka reports. The former colonial power cannot loot property and then set conditions for its return. But the author seems to think that the British have a point - because TWO Nigerians went on some ridiculous expedition to Brazil to claim what turned out to be a fake statue. What's the connection? Maybe Soyinka IS crazy, but how does that justify Britain's refusal to return Nigerian artifacts? It's makes for a glib, witty sentence in the story, but it doesn't make sense and reduces a serious matter to a punchline.

I have not read Mr. Soyinka’s memoir, and cannot argue its merits; however, Mr. Steinglass’s flipplant review worries me. The reviewer himself seems to hearken to Bloom’s specious arguments when he conflates cultural relativism with the complex political and social questions posed by Soyinka’s _Death and the King’s Horseman_ and with the political realities of Nigeria today.

Bloom castigates his own straw-man version of “the cultural relativist” in order to undermine any critique of Western cultural norms; Mr. Steinglass, in his rush to ridicule Soyinka, accepts the straw, and so writes a review that would make Mr. Bloom proud.

As Steinglass states: “The post-colonial left has decided that some cultural traditions are less morally relative than others: Nigerian picturesque ritual suicides, perhaps yes; Nigerian genital mutilation of girls, perhaps no.” Could Mr. Bloom dismiss African scholarship any more blithely? Now, decades of thought are reduced to a silly “post-colonial left” and the troubling questions addressed in thousands of pages of prose reduced to a flippant line.

And how could Bloom surpass Steinglass’s later bit of condescension? Steinglass tells us that the British may be the better caretakers of African cultural artifacts because, “A country whose most prestige-laden university professors launch an expedition to ‘rescue’ a clay copy of a non-missing archaeological treasure faces a certain burden of proof.” Bloom would have to go back to the oldy-but-goody argument of the “white man’s burden” to do any better.

Mr. Steinglass may be right about Soyinka’s book; I don’t know. However, the manner of this review makes me wonder if we have become more infected by right-wing propaganda than we realize. Now, even liberals can find a cozy comfort in dismissing African (and perhaps non-Western) scholarship.

It's not condescending if it's true.

Don't mean to be pedantic or anything, but it was Antigonus, not Angelo who was pursued by the bear, and he wasn't really a political exile, he was just doing his job.

I have one question for the writer of the article: did the statue, once found in Burlington, get returned to Nigeria? Because it was stolen goods, stolen from Nigerians years ago and never returned. The writer of the article can make witty jokes at Soyinka's expense, cracking wise about what a spectacle he makes, what a funny man he is dashing to and for, but my guess is that that statue, like practically everything that Western museums have stolen and neglected to return, is still within the borders of the nations that stole them only a few years ago. That apparently does not require comment from the writer--why, after all, should Africans expect any kind of respect or fair play from the West? How foolish of anyone who would harbor such idealistic, naive expectations. After all, if "the most prestige-laden" professor in Nigeria has to resort to Indian Jones tactics to recover such items, let us not forget that the most "prestige laden" scientists in the West were the ones who stole these artifacts in the first place, back when their nations were stealing anything else they could get their hands on. But then, to the writer of this article, a crime is only a crime if it is committed by someone else. If it is committed by his own nation? Well, then he demonstrates the true meaning of the phrase "cultural relativism."