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Cover of The Man Died by Wole Soyinka

The Man Died

Wole Soyinka

  • 317 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 1972
  • 11 editions
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1 About this book

The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka is a 1972 memoir by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka that explores his experiences in prison during the Nigerian Civil War. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned the book. In 2011, The Guardian included The Man Died in their list of the 100 greatest non-fiction books.

The book, along with Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn, provided the background of the documentary film Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory, written by Nigerian writer and linguist Kola Tubosun about the period of Soyinka's arrest, detention, and the circumstances of his leaving the University of Ibadan for exile in 1972.

A film adaptation of the memoir was released in 2024. It was directed by Awam Amkpa and produced by Femi Odugbemi.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: history, a true life story, and politics.

  • History
  • Political prisoners
  • Biography
  • Politics and government
  • Nigeria, politics and government
  • Notebooks, sketchbooks
  • Prisoners and prisons
  • Prisons

2 About Wole Soyinka

Born 1934

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (; born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, playwright, and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty-five plays and five memoirs. He has also written two translated works and many articles and short stories for newspapers and periodicals.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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