A Nobel Prize-winning playwright's classic tale of tragic decisions in a traditional African culture. Based on events that took place in Oyo, an ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946, Wole Soyinka's powerful play concerns the intertwined lives of Elesin Oba, the king's chief horseman; his son, Olunde, now studying medicine in England; and Simon Pilkings, the colonial distric...(展开全部)

沃尔・索因卡，尼日利亚诗人、小说家、剧作家，一九三四年出生于约鲁巴族聚居的阿贝奥库塔。 一九五七年取得英国利兹大学英文学士学位，毕业后于英国皇家宫廷剧院任剧本编审，一九六○三月回国，尼日利亚于同年十月脱离英国独立。他先后创立“一九六○假面”剧团和“欧瑞森剧团”，制作并演出自己的剧作，其后陆续受邀至剑桥、耶鲁等大学讲学。一九六六年，尼日利亚内战爆发，索因卡于一九六七年遭军政府逮捕，入狱一年十个月。被捕之前，他是尼日利亚伊巴丹大学戏剧学院的院长。一九七三年获利兹大学荣誉博士学位。一九八六年获诺贝尔文学奖，成为第一位获此殊荣的非洲作家。 蔡宜刚，台湾中原大学电机系毕业，台湾清华大学社会学研究所毕业。译有《行动有者的归来》及《非凡小人物》。

"Backgrounds and Sources" helps readers understand Death and the King's Horseman's traditional African contexts and the role of theater in African culture. Included are a map of Yoruba-land, discussions of Yoruban religious beliefs and cultural traditions, Soyinka on the various forms that theater has taken in African culture in order to survive, and Anthony Appiah on Soyinka's...(展开全部)

In this groundbreaking work, social anthropologist David Sneath aggressively dispels the myths surrounding the history of steppe societies and proposes a new understanding of the nature and formation of the state. Since the colonial era, representations of Inner Asia have been dominated by images of fierce nomads organized into clans and tribes--but as Sneath reveals, these rep...(展开全部)