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by Ken Saro-Wiwa (Author)
These letters and poems are invaluable fragments of a living conversation that portrays the indomitable power in humans to stay alive in the face of certain death - to stay alive even in death. Reading through the treasure trove of the letters and poems compiled here as The Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa evokes intense memories of his resolute struggles against an oil behemoth and a deaf autocratic government. His crusade frames one of the most tumultuous periods of Nigeria's history; his tragic story evokes anger and demands action to resolve the crises that first led the Ogoni people to demand that Shell clean up Ogoni lands or clear out of the territory.
Author Biography
Kenule Beeson "Ken" Saro-Wiwa (10 October 1941 - 10 November 1995) was a Nigerian writer, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award for "exemplary courage in striving non-violently for civil, economic and environmental rights" and the Goldman Environmental Prize. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and which has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as spokesperson, and then as president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area. At the peak of his non-violent campaign, he was tried by a special military tribunal for allegedly masterminding the gruesome murder of Ogoni chiefs at a pro-government meeting, and hanged in 1995 by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for over three years.
Helen Fallon is Deputy Librarian at Maynooth University. She has previously worked at Dublin City University and the University of Sierra Leone. She has published ex- tensively and presents workshops on writing for academic publication nationally and internationally. She edited (with Íde Corley and Laurence Cox) the death row correspondence of Ken Saro-Wiwa, published as Silence Would be Treason: Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa. She created the Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Audio Archive with Dr Anne O'Brien.
Íde Corley is a Lecturer in English at Maynooth University where she directs MA programmes in Postcolonial and World Literatures and in Irish Literature and Culture.
