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摘要
摘要
When Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's The Open Sore of a Continent appeared in 1996, it received rave reviews in the national media. Now comes Soyinka's powerful sequel to that fearless and passionate book, The Burden of Memory. Where Open Sore offered a critique of African nationhood and a searing indictment of the Nigerian military and its repression of human and civil rights, The Burden of Memory considers all of Africa--indeed, all the world--as it poses the next logical question: Once repression stops, is reconciliation between oppressor and victim possible? In the face of centuries long devastations wrought on the African continent and her Diaspora by slavery, colonialism, Apartheid and the manifold faces of racism what form of recompense could possibly be adequate? In a voice as eloquent and humane as it is forceful, Soyinka examines this fundamental question as he illuminates the principle duty and "near intolerable burden" of memory to bear the record of injustice. In so doing, he challenges notions of simple forgiveness, of confession and absolution, as strategies for social healing. Ultimately, he turns to art--poetry, music, painting--as one source that may nourish the seed of reconciliation, art as the generous vessel that can hold together the burden of memory and the hope of forgiveness. Based on Soyinka's Stewart-McMillan lectures delivered at the Du Bois Institute at Harvard, The Burden of Memory speaks not only to those concerned specifically with African politics, but also to anyone seeking the path to social justice through some of history's most inhospitable terrain.
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《书目》(Booklist)书评
In three essays, Nobel laureate Soyinka examines Africa's recent history and the ways African and other countries have dealt with horrendous crimes against humanity. Like his Open Sore of a Continent (1996), this work is based on lectures at Harvard University's W. E. B. DuBois Institute. The first essay, "Reparations, Truth, and Reconciliation," deals most directly with the issues Tina Rosenberg addressed in her prizewinning study of post-Communist Eastern Europe, The Haunted Land: "How on earth does one reconcile reparations, or recompense, with reconciliation, or remission of wrongs?" Although Soyinka respects the generosity of spirit behind South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he points out that failure to demand restitution may build an expectation of impunity that can only encourage further crimes. In the essays "L. S. Senghor and Negritude" and "Negritude and the Gods of Equity," Soyinka examines the response of writers with African roots to the effects of slavery and colonialism as well as to the cruelties imposed on Africans by many of their own postcolonial leaders. --Mary Carroll
Choice 评论
This volume collects several essays based on lectures given at Harvard's Du Bois Institute in 1997 by the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature (1986). In various ways these essays address questions raised by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and ask, fundamentally, if reconciliation between former oppressors and their victims can (or should) truly take place. Soyinka draws on experiences from Africa and the African diaspora to focus his arguments--from transatlantic slavery to Uganda's Idi Amin to the oppression of contemporary Nigeria. He elegantly examines the complexities of particular cases and challenges simple arguments that call for confession and forgiveness. In the end, Soyinka suggests, it may be that art--in particular poetry and music--is best suited to encourage the kind of climate in which both truth and reconciliation can emerge. Excellent for those familiar with Africa, this volume extends Soyinka's The Open Sore of a Continent (CH, Mar'97), which addresses the issue of national identity in contemporary Nigeria. Academic collections serving upper-division undergraduates and graduate students; general readers. C. Pike University of Minnesota
目录
Foreword | p. vii |
Acknowledgments | p. xi |
Introduction | p. 3 |
I Reparations, Truth, and Reconciliation | p. 23 |
II L.S. Senghor and Negritude: Paccuse, mais, je pardonne | p. 93 |
III Negritude and the Gods of Equity | p. 145 |
Index | p. 195 |