A Postcolonial Ecocritical Reading of Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests

This study tries to construct a picture of what nature looks like in postcolonial literature. In fact, ecocriticism, which emerged during the latter half of the twentieth century, in its general sense is the most contested issue in postcolonial studies and particularly in African literary scholarship.The Nigerian Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka in his outstanding plays A Dance of the Forests (3691) shows environment as an inherent feature in postcolonial literature. Under the condition of environmental thought, Buell’s ecocritical notions open the door to viewing environmentality as a common and foundational feature of postcolonial literature. Applying the environmental theories of Buell to the play, this study attempts to show the postcolonial situation of Nigeria, particularly people living in the oil-producing region of the Niger Delta with its impoverished and polluted ecosystem.

Keywords:

Ecocriticism , Postcolonialism , Lawrence Buell , Wole Soyinka , A Dance of the Forests