African Writers

Abstract

This study offers a historic overview of the very unfortunate plight of African writers, who are defined here as poets, playwrights, essayists, novelists, and even journalists, and how postcolonial-era political repressive measures-also termed trials and tribulationsforce many of them into voluntary exile. These writers have included some of Africa's most famous, as Greenhouse (1994) reported in The New York Times of the unorthodox departure of Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Literature Laureate, from his Nigerian homeland. Instead of leaving Nigeria on the traditional red carpet often reserved for diplomats and notable dignitaries, Soyinka-to avoid arrest by Nigerian security agents because of his opinions-had to escape, reportedly, through the bush into exile abroad, to live temporarily in America. Whereas several pieces of empirical evidence have been used to buttress the theme of this study-which promptly includes the discussion of the consequences of political repression and brain drain