Soyinka, W: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People

A gruesome discovery, and an honest man trying to hold on to his humanity - and his life - forms the mystery at the heart of a work which is both a gripping whodunit and a sharply satirical state of the nation novel. At once a scathing indictment of an opportunistic and avaricious political elite and a paean to the spirit of people in their charge, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People On Earth is provocative, profoundly compassionate, and slyly mischievous. Bristling with wit and rage in equal measure and delivered with an enormous generosity of spirit and a dazzling lightness of touch, Wole Soyinka's speaks truth to power as ever with a tour de force from a master storyteller at the height of his powers.