Aké

The Years of Childhood

Wole Soyinka recounts his early childhood in Aké, a Yoruba town in western Nigeria, during the years surrounding the Second World War. The memoir follows a curious boy growing up on a Christian parsonage compound, shaped by his family, local traditions, and the expanding political world around him. It portrays childhood experience alongside the social and colonial tensions that precede Nigerian self-government.

by Wole Soyinka

Vintage · First published 1981 · 230 pages