The Interpreters
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Book Overview
A gang of Nigerian intellectuals are trying to make something worthwhile of their lives and talents in a society where corruption and consequence, cynicism, social climbing and confirming give them alternate cause for despair and laughter. This book won the Nobel Prize in 1986.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0435900765
ISBN13:9780435900762
Release Date:October 1984
Publisher:Heinemann Educational Books
Length:260 Pages
Weight:0.48 lbs.
Dimensions:0.6" x 4.7" x 7.3"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
An African novel with a '60s spirit and sense of humor.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
"The Interpreters" are a group of Nigerian intellectuals who have traveled outside their home country and who have returned to confront and understand the gods of their ancestors, the government of their country, and their own fates. The book reminded me of some of my favorite "anarchic" novels of the '50s and '60s-"Lucky Jim," "The End of the Road," even "The Crying of Lot 49." Sagoe, the journalist character, has a fascinating and scatalogical philosophy of life that parodies French existentialism very cleverly. The other characters include a frustrated engineer who becomes a great sculptor, a painter hard at work throughout the narrative on an epic canvas depicting all the main characters as versions of the gods of Yorubaland, and an eccentric white Englishwoman who has married an unsuitable Nigerian bureaucrat and befriended his more liberal mother. The book works on several levels--as farce, as cultural critique of colonialism, and as an exploration of the ongoing legacy of the Yoruba gods who animate and obsess the interpreters. Most importantly, it is an entertaining and unpredictable story full of sharp insights and surprises.
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