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Title: Harrowing
Review: This is the story of Soyinka's 27 month period of imprisonment at the hands of the Nigerian government. Unlike, say, Nelson Mandela's autobiography, which generally casts a similar subject in its wider political and social contexts, this is fundamentally a personal account, painfully private at times. Essentially, Soyinka found refuge from the brutality inflicted upon him by retreating into and living within his own mind. At times he drifted about the frontiers of madness, hanging on to his self by a thread. At others he pondered, listened, watched, like only the truly otherwise unoccupied can. And, importantly, he also managed to scrounge paper and a pencil from time to time and record his journey of motionlessness. For those interested in the human mind, this is a rewarding book, and I highly recommend it.
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