In this brown bag event, Fulbright Visiting Scholar Dr. Damlègue Lare will discuss his book DICTION AND POSTCOLONIAL VISIONS IN THE PLAYS OF WOLE SOYINKA, a critical examination of the dramatic writings of Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka over his writing career, from the perspectives of his language use and his sociopolitical vision. Two fundamental praxes are developed: language use and meanings in their cultural contexts (diction) in part one, and the sociopolitical description of what Soyinka sees as impediments to Africa’s development in parts two and three. Such impediments include armed conflicts, corruption and dictatorship; practices which give mortal blows to African economies and hinder its development. The book looks at African society from the perspective of postcolonial discourses as Soyinka takes a different position from other writers of his generation by refuting the claim that European colonialism is solely responsible for Africa’s underdevelopment.

Damlègue Lare was born and educated in Togo (West Africa). He holds a Doctorate Degree in African Literature from the University of Lome. He is senior lecturer of Anglophone African literature and has been teaching in that university for the past ten years. He is Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the academic year 2016-2017. His other researches focus on African feminism, gender discourses, postcolonial and postmodern African literary criticism.