Adewale Maja-Pearce on Professor Wole Soyinka:
"About a couple of years later, I wrote to him because I was working on JP Clark's book during the time they were launching Femi Osofisan's book on JP. I said "do you have any piece on what you said about JP Clark?" This was because Soyinka alleged that Clark had been going around telling everybody that he (Soyinka) when he was in detention, he was suffering from terminal syphilis. It was a big thing, of course they went to court and everything and Clark eventually withdrew from the case. I said to Soyinka, I'm engaged in JP book and I just want to know if you have further thought on your allegation. He said 'no, no, no,' he doesn't have anything; that he stands by himself and that, by the way, "I am glad to get in touch with you." He said he was willing to tell me that he had heard from so many quarters that I had written negative reviews of his book, that he hadn't read it and he was not going to read it. I applied for a fellowship at the University of Nevada, United States of America with about $50 for one year nine month. I didn't know that Soyinka was on the board. He said by the way I understand that you applied for this fellowship. So, I have to excuse myself for any consideration of your candidateship. So, I just wrote back to him that well, it was my fundamental human rights to say if I don't like a book, that you yourself has reserved the right to say what you like about other people's works. I know that censorship takes many forms. I said it was his choice to do whatever he had done. So, I was surprised when I read what Soyinka said about me. He called me "unscrupulous and unprincipled." He said that, when they were celebrating Femi Osofisan that I wasn't there and my book wasn't there. But I have written about it. I was having my argument with JP, we are in court now. I sent him (Soyinka) a mail that unscrupulous and unprincipled stand like aggravated libel to me because you are telling me you are discouraging my work; you are calling my moral character into question. You give no proof. You just abuse. l don't think that it is worthy of him. But what he said was aggravated libel. I would have gone to court but decided not to. It is not that I really have problem with Soyinka but he wants to have problem with me because he doesn't like people saying negative things about his work. Greatest writers in the world write banned books from time to time. I don't know what I should call him. Maybe, because the white-man gave him the prize, maybe he thinks he is a god. It is God that cannot be criticised. I wasn't criticising him as a human; I was criticising the book I was given to review. It could be written by anybody but my review will be exactly the same and I did not make reference of him outside what he wrote in the book and in the process I was praising him that he was the most sophisticated writer in Nigeria because he wrote such a book like The Man Died during the civil war. "
Entertaining interview of Adewale Maja-Pearce. Poorly edited but entertaining as hell... A must read. Wahala dey...
Oya read the rest here!
- Ikhide
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