“To See Things in His Time”: Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sense of Place in Sozaboy

Abstract

Ever since Ken Saro-Wiwa published his novel Sozaboy in 1985, it has attracted and received tremendous critical attention. However, literary scholars and critics mostly explore either the author’s use of language or his representation of the Nigerian Civil War in Sozaboy. Deploying theories of ecocriticism and regionalism, this paper shifts that focus by examining certain ways Saro-Wiwa articulates his sense of place in Sozaboy and the place, as is well-known, is Dukana – his narrative locus. At the centre of this paper is the contention that Dukana, Saro-Wiwa’s fictional world, is replete with certain characteristics which shape a writer’s vision of place and these include the landscape, culture, beliefs, habits and mannerisms or ethos of a place. Accordingly, I shall analyse Saro-Wiwa’s sense of place in Sozaboy in terms of his perceptions of these characteristics of Dukana. In this way, I propose to locate Saro-Wiwa in the regionalist or place-sense writer’s tradition. I shall further argue that Saro-Wiwa derives his sense of place from what he has seen and known about the Niger Delta region and its people in lived experience. The paper finds that in addition to Saro-Wiwa’s experimentation with language and his concern with the civil war, what also informs his writing of Sozaboy is his desire to articulate rural sensibilities. Drawing from his preoccupation with regional life and events that live on in the pages of his fictional works, the paper concludes that Saro-Wiwa is, for the most part, a regionalist or place-sense writer.