Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known

With sections tellingly entitled "Outsiders", "Of Exits", "Fugitive Phases", and "Elegies" these poems were for the most part written during a period of enforced travelling, when the poet had a price placed on his head by the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. They offer a global perspective on the last, troubled decade of the 20th century with meditations on the deaths of Francois Miterrand and the Nigerian dissident Ken Saro-Wiwa as well as invocations to fellow writers such as Josef Brodsky and Chinua Achebe. This collection unites Soyinka's public persona with insights into a much more private poetic search.