Re‐narrating the nation: Soyinka’s The Interpreters

Abstract

The Interpreters, Soyinka’s first novel, was greeted by critics as a critique of the postcolonial state, as one of the so‐called novels of post‐independent disillusionment. This article does not deny this aspect of Soyinka’s social vision. The impulse behind the novel may well be the desire to expose the internal contradictions of the Nigerian nation: political independence without prosperity; the inability of the ruling class to displace the political and cultural hegemony of the colonizers; the failure of the state to forge an alternative economic or social path for the nation – all of which undermine the nation’s claim to relevance. However, the article goes beyond Soyinka’s critique of the Nigerian state to argue that, to situate Soyinka within the spectrum of postcolonial writers and thinkers, The Interpreters should be construed as a narrative rupture with the national model by presenting the nation as an ongoing interpretive project of participants in a social and political order. The nation thus emerges as a ground for dispute, a polyphonic conversation made up of contenting ideologies and paradigms, which forms the basis for national regeneration.

Keywords:

• Wole Soyinka
• The Interpreters
• Nigeria
• polyphony
• nationality