Author: Wole Soyinka

Synopsis:
‘Soyinka’s greatest novel … No one else can write such a book’ – Ben Okri ‘A lion of African literature’ – Financial Times ‘Chronicles is many things at once: a caustic political satire, a murder mystery, a conspiracy story and a deeply felt lament for the spirit of a nation’ – Juan Gabriel Vasquez, New York Times A FINANCIAL TIMES AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR To Doctor Menka’s horror, some cunning entrepreneur has decided to sell body parts from his hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Already at the end of his tether from the horrors he routinely sees in surgery, he shares this latest development with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne, who has never before met a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Neither realise how close the enemy is, nor how powerful. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a savagely witty whodunit, a scathing indictment of Nigeria’s political elite, and a provocative call to arms from one of the country’s most relentless political activists and an international literary giant. ‘A high-jinks state-of-the-nation novel’ – Chibundu Onuzo ‘Chronicles is a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one’ – Guardian