This book ten years in the making is a hefty critique of African authors and playwrites south of the Nile. The book is written for academics and is hard going on the conceptual theory and not enough on the entertainment value of reading the authors in question. For people all ready familiar with many Nigerian authors such as the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, Chinua Achebe, and Wole Soyinka, this book can provide some insight into the political circumstances under which Africans have to write. But the book could have benefited from some editing of the essays and a less ponderous tone

Owomoyela's prose versions of these trickster tales are terrific -- sharp intelligence, respect for the material, and traditional proverbs abound. Very readable and very good. The only potential drawbacks lie in the fact that these are prose versions, and much of the original oral traditional context has been stripped. Still, an impressive updating of some ancient material that works on a high intellectual level.