Abstract
The “return to sender”, the return of the educated Nigerian to his town of origin, is a recurring theme in Soyinka’s prose works. This article traces the way both the return and the sender are imagined evolves over the course of The Interpreters, Season of Anomy, Aké and Isara. In The Interpreters, the return is seen as the solitary journey of an Ogun figure into the fossilized essence of the past; Season of Anomy and Aké re-imagine the small town as the site of vital cultural practices and, in Isara, the return to sender becomes the collective return of a generation of intellectuals to a town that is itself part of the modern world. The returnees in Isara, unlike Egbo in The Interpreters, have developed the intellectual elasticity to accommodate two worlds: a world of global forecasts and global politics and a world of local deities and local responsibilities.
Published Version
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