Shakespeare in Swahililand: Adventures With the Ever-Living Poet Wilson-Lee, Edward

William Collins
Year of publishing: 2016
Place of publishing: London
ISBN: 9780008146191
Language: English

Published to commemorate 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in April 2016, a breathtaking exploration into Shakespeare as a Global poet.

Whilst travelling in Luxor, Edward Wilson-Lee encountered a man who called out to him from the summer shade with lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth: 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.' Unable to resist the temptation, Wilson-Lee responded with the next line and so began a fascination with unexpected cultural encounters, especially those made memorable by the poignancy of discovering beauty out of place.

Shakespeare may have heard of Luxor (although he would have known it as Thebes) but it is unlikely that he imagined his lines ever being spoken there, close by the feluccas sailing on the Nile and the acres of pharaonic ruins beyond.

This radical, breath-taking book combines travel, history, biography and satire in an ode to Shakespeare. Wilson-Lee teaches Shakespeare at Cambridge but grew up in East Africa and Shakespeare in Swahililand explores Shakespeare’s global legacy like no other book before it. In these pages explorers stagger through Africa's interior accompanied by Shakespeare; eccentrics live out their dreams on the African Savannah with Shakespeare by their side; decadent emigres, railway labourers, Indian settler communities, African intellectuals and rebels all turned to Shakespeare and adapted his plays to fit their needs. The book examines how Shakespeare influenced the first African leaders of independent nations, Cold War intrigues and even Che Guevara.

With its extraordinary sequence of stories and momentous travels from Zanzibar, through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan, this literary adventure throws high culture and the wild together in celebration of Shakespeare's legacy as a poet of the world.

Volumes

WIL_2.4. (Available)

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New arrivals

New titles in our library 12/2016

Our library has aquired a number of new and interesting books. Here is the list of the latest titles.

Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith
Fashion Cities Africa by Hannah Azieb Pool
Frantz Fanon: Toward a Revolutionary Humanismby Christopher Lee
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by Robinson, James A., Acemoglu, Daron
Shakespeare in Swahililand: Adventures With the Ever-Living Poet by Edward Wilson-Lee
A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to the Present by Richard J. Reid
Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture by Sarah Van Beurden
Children in Slavery through the Ages by by Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, Joseph C. Miller
Global Health in Africa: Historical Perspectives on Disease Control by Tamara Giles-Vernick
Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos by Gary Stewart
Women and Slavery, Vol. 1: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic by Gwyn Campbell
Women and Slavery, Vol. 2: The Modern Atlantic by Gwyn Campbell
Cahier d'un Retour Au Pays Natal by Aimé Cesaire
Healing Traditions: African Medicine, Cultural Exchange and Competition in South Africa, 1820-1948 by Karen Elizabeth Flint
Global Education Policy and International Development: New Agendas, Issues and Policies by Antoni Verger
Black Skin, White Coats: Nigerian Psychiatrists, Decolonization, and the Globalization of Psychiatry by Matthew M. Heaton