Based on an event in colonial Nigeria in 1946, Death and the King’s Horseman stages a collision between Yoruba ritual obligation and British colonial authority, but Soyinka is very explicit that the play is not simply an East-versus-West morality piece. 

At the centre is Elesin, the king’s horseman, whose prescribed death is intended to accompany the dead king into the ancestral realm and preserve continuity between the living, the dead and the unborn. When the colonial administration intervenes, the consequences spread far beyond an individual act. Soyinka moves between ceremonial language, satire, song, argument and tragedy, making the play as interested in responsibility and failure within Yoruba society as it is in colonial intrusion.

One of Soyinka’s major plays: formally rich, politically sharp, and unusually resistant to being reduced to the tidy allegory it initially appears to offer.

Edition & condition: Methuen, 1986 reprint. Paperback. Light shelf wear and rubbing to covers; internally clean and firmly bound. Very good condition.