Death and the King's Horseman
by Wole Soyinkaliterary work· published 1993
Shop for this title via the links below.
Death and the King's Horseman is a play by Wole Soyinka based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during the colonial era: the horseman of a Yoruba King was prevented from committing ritual suicide by the colonial authorities. In addition to the intervention of the colonial authorities, Soyinka calls the horseman's own conviction toward suicide into question, posing a problem that throws off the community's balance. Soyinka wrote the play in Cambridge, where he was a fellow at Churchill College during his political exile from Nigeria. He has also written a preface to the play, explaining what he sees as the greatest misconceptions in understanding it.
Adaptations (1)
Death and the King's Horseman was adapted into a 2022 film.
Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman2022 · film · 96 min · dir. Biyi Bandele · IMDb ↗IMDb4.4Inspired by true life events, in the Oyo Empire in the 1940's, Elesin Oba, the king's chief horseman, succumbs to the lure of beauty and sexual desire on the very evening he is set to die in order to fulfil his lifelong debt of ritual suicide to accompany the dead Alaafin to the realm of the ancestors, he derails from a very important generational and spiritual transaction. This sets in motion a series of catastrophic consequences, in a spell-binding film of emotions, humour, and tragic role reversals that puts ancient beliefs and customs on trial in an ever increasingly post-modern and Western world.
