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About the author
Bibliographical description
Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and
Other Essays/ by Adewale
Maja-Pearce. [First print] The New
Gong, Lagos, Nigeria: Printed in
the United States by KingPrinting,
Inc: Adibooks [distributor], 2005.
306 pages: 5.5 x 8.5 ins. ISBN
9783842102 (paperback).
Non-fiction. Price: US$ 15; GBP 9;
Euro 13.
See extracts from other writings by
Adewale Maja-Pearce:
Loyalties
In My Father's Country
A Mask Dancing
Adewale Maja-Pearce is the author of a number of books,
including In My Father’s Country: A Nigerian Journey, Loyalties
and Other Stories, How many miles to Babylon?, A Mask Dancing:
Nigerian Novelists of the Eighties, and Who’s Afraid of Wole
Soyinka? He has also edited The Heinemann Book of African
Poetry in English and Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal. He was
formerly editor of the Heinemann African Writers’ Series (1986-
94), and Africa editor of Index on Censorship (1986-97). He
currently lives in Lagos, where he runs YEMAJA, an editorial
services agency.
Ken Saro-Wiwa aroused powerful emotions in his life, and his
death by hanging on the orders of General Sani Abacha shook
the world. The sainthood of Saro-Wiwa has been promoted in
much of the media, but some polemical voices assert that he was
more sinner than saint. In the title essay of Remembering Ken
Saro-Wiwa and Other Essays, Adewale Maja-Pearce strikingly
delves beyond the myths into the man in full, warts and all,
portraying an ambitious protagonist who initially cultivated
powerful friends in the military, in government and business but
ended up tragically through judicial murder engendered by the
fratricidal crossfire of the Ogoni struggle. Like its subject,
controversy dogged every step of this book, and the publishing
was nearly stopped as people took positions without reading a
word of it. Now that the book is finally out the public is gifted with
the pristine opportunity of dipping into the immense world of Maja-
Pearce as he, in twenty-three heartfelt essays and reviews,
illuminates the benighted mores of modern Nigeria, the identity
question in South Africa, the evil politics from cape to coast of
Africa, and the seminal minds across the world. This book is a
treasure, a profound testament.
- Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
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