The Muse of Anomy

The Muse of Anomy is a collection of essays compiled from forty years of addresses and lectures by the distinguished Nigerian writer and scholar Femi Osofisan, who also goes by the pen name Okinba Launko.

Coming from one of the major figures of the contemporary literary scene in Africa, these essays are candid, thought-provoking, and scintillating. They reveal the workings of a restless, sensitive mind that is deeply perceptive, interrogating an extensive range of authors and works across space and time, examining options, and highlighting both the failed and heroic moments in recent Nigerian history.

Every page arrests the reader with its humor and compelling eloquence; every sentence reverberates with the author's passionate commitment to the advent of a better society in Africa, and against the demons of her current political nightmare. Indeed, read together, the essays constitute a kind of bible of literary activism, anchored on Osofisan's abiding faith in the practice of art as a moral and humanistic vocation, and therefore as a strategically vital front in humankind's perpetual struggle for happiness.

This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin.

"Osofisan is a writer of great eloquence, powerful conviction, and profound humor, and this volume—which represents almost 40 years of public lectures and presentations—consistently demonstrates these traits...Summing up: Highly Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates though faculty; general readers." — K. J. Wetmore, CHOICE magazine