Breezy, sometimes, punchy, it is typical Wole Soyinka: brimming with wisdom and full of words you may never have heard or seen or read anywhere. You have to polish your vocabulary with it. What comes across is the fact that you cannot deny that Soyinka is a master when it comes to telling stories. In real life, he is not boring and on a sheet of paper, the mastery shows. He writes with the fury of someone, angry, but relaxed and sitting on his throne ... many years of living, deeper wisdom, unleashed in a very lasting narrative technique and a narrator’s voice that is familiar ... as I read, I could hear his voice—here is a book that is not for everyone, because of his perfect mastery of language ... This storytelling technique is very muscular. I have never seen anyone write about the political/religious class with so much dexterity. And perhaps, accuracy! His wealth of experience from different strata of life, reflects fully in this masterpiece.

This is essentially a whistleblower’s book. It is a novel that explodes criminal racketeering of a most sinister and deadly kind that is operating in an African nation uncomfortably like Nigeria. It is a vivid and wild romp through a political landscape riddled with corruption and opportunism and a spiritual landscape riddled with fraudulence and, even more disquietingly, state-sanctioned murder. This is a novel written at the end of an artist’s tether. It has gone beyond satire. It is a vast danse macabre. It is the work of an artist who finally has found the time and the space to unleash a tale about all that is rotten in the state of Nigeria. No one else can write such a book and get away with it and still live and function in the very belly of the horrors revealed. But then no other writer has Soyinka’s unique positioning in the political and cultural life of his nation ... One thing to be clear about from the outset is that with certain writers of highly individualised voices, highly cultivated ways of seeing, there is nothing you can do about their styles. It is an inescapable fruit of how they see the world. Like Henry James, like Conrad, like Nabokov, there is no choice but to get used to the style, to saturate yourself in it. But once you nestle into that tone, something wonderful happens and a rollercoaster ride of enormous vitality is the result ... It is a high-wire performance sustained for more than 400 pages and it makes for uncomfortable and despairing reading, but always elevated with a robust sense of humour and the true satirist’s unwillingness to take the pretensions of power seriously, even when it is murderous in effect ... There are many things to remark upon in this Vesuvius of a novel, not least its brutal excoriation of a nation in moral free fall. The wonder is how Soyinka managed to formulate a tale that can carry the weight of all that chaos. With asides that are polemics, facilitated with a style that is over-ripe, its flaws are plentiful, its storytelling wayward, but the incandescence of its achievement makes these quibbles inconsequential ... If you want to know what kind of novel can be written by someone who has survived as a sort of insid… answers that question. It is Soyinka’s greatest novel, his revenge against the insanities of the nation’s ruling class and one of the most shocking chronicles of an African nation in the 21st century. It ought to be widely read.

The surgeon is a fascinating character with a compelling arc. If only Mr. Soyinka and his editors had taken the time to release his story from the crowd of characters and the maze of plot lines that surround it ... Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth—the title itself is a dark joke—reads like a compendium of everything that is wrong with modern-day Nigeria ... Though the work of a great writer, this is not a great book. Dr. Menka, a fully rounded character, shares scenes with characters who are hardly more than cardboard caricatures, and a queasy mix of bitterness, rage, and cynicism flavors the whole. The novel may have been a necessary purge for its author, but it would be a shame if readers formed their opinion of Nigeria from this work and not from Mr. Soyinka’s poems and plays, or from his funny and tender family memoirs Aké: The Years of Childhood and Ìsarà: A Voyage Around ‘Essay.’

Chronicles is written in what critics would describe as a 'late style': a bit prolix, often dilatory and anecdotal. It is also courageous, and it does name names and point fingers. One of the delights is the ease with which Soyinka switches between registers, from the elevated to the absurd, along with his unapologetic use of 'Nigerianisms' and Yoruba vernacular. There is a long monologue in pidgin English near the end of the book where a steward, Godsown, gives a hilarious account of a crime he has witnessed. Perhaps the writer’s personality looms larger than any character he portrays, but then, as most readers will tell you, that is exactly what they want from Soyinka: the witty anecdotes, the digressions, even the famous linguistic obscurity and bombast. There is a restless intellectual energy here that belies the age of the author ... a good model for what the political novel should be: fearless, disdaining formal constraints, sparing no one, leaving behind it a scorched earth littered with the burnt figures of corrupt politicians and military dictators and religious charlatans and social parasites, and even the masses who, in the name of religion and tribe, are made tools of the elite. In the end, it is a triumph of the novel as a form: its ability to accommodate all styles and approaches. How lucky we are that Soyinka has decided to give that form another go.

Much that Soyinka chronicles here is closely based on fact—and part of the considerable challenge he faces is that much of the reality he's working and riffing off already borders on the—sometimes almost too—comically absurd ... There long seem to be only loose connections between some of the chapters and characters as Soyinka unfolds his story, but ultimately almost everything is much more closely tied together than it initially appears. Soyinka toys quite a bit with his readers, especially in dosing out what he reveals and explains: the chapters are mostly very much in the moment, and there's quite a bit of fill-in information that he long holds back, only sprinkling it in along the way (and saving quite a bit for the final reveals) ... Soyinka manages some suspense, but also often saps it—not least with a style that does, bit by bit, hold the reader rapt but also stunts the action. Soyinka's sentences are wonderfully expressive, but he—and his story—can get too wrapped up in them; it makes for a sometimes sloggish read. Soyinka does not go all-out in twisting this into absurdist satire; there is humor here, but he doesn't force comic effect ... While certainly satisfying, piece by piece along the way, the larger picture remains frustratingly hinted-at but long opaque; the way in which Soyinka holds back does not always work to good effect ... well worthwhile, but is not an easy—much less easy-going—read.

It does not disappoint with its remarkable cast of characters, complex plot, and intrigue and, above all, its searing satire ... convoluted and difficult to follow ... At the same time, it is more than worth the difficulty. This is an extraordinary novel that is both in and of Nigeria. It contains elements of Yoruba culture and, in the middle of it all, is a gourd full of satire, humor and pathos. It is a chronicle of human folly among the happiest people on earth. The writing alone is a wonder and a fitting coda for the career of this great writer who led the parade of extremely talented writers coming out of post-independence Nigeria.

... an exceedingly unique tale, one that feels as if it has a tone and genre all its own ... For those willing to work to untangle the dense language and complex storylines that weave their way through the novel, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth could very well be considered a great novel. It’s sharp commentary on how corruption can infect a nation is powerful, and it is rich with humor, irony, and plot twists. Nevertheless, the style and language make it exceedingly difficult to grasp. It is easy to get lost in the multitude of characters and crisscrossing narratives. For those willing to ride the wave and who are seeking a story that challenges them, it could make a great choice. However, it isn’t right for those looking for a light or easily digestible read.

... it takes readers on a wild, funny, ride through a mystery that encompasses charlatan preachers, corrupt politicians, upper-class scholars and more. The parts of the novel that are good are immensely good—and in true Soyinka fashion, the writing tosses you right into the middle of Nigerian life, for better or worse ... It is a difficult storyline to follow. Soyinka writes in a conversational tone — if the conversation were between scholars and not barstool buddies—and neglects to introduce his central character, around whom the murder mystery swirls, until five chapters in. Chronicles—though it flashes with Soyinka's sharp social and political humor, takes a herculean effort to read; it's littered with far too many names to keep track of. (And even after reading over 440 pages of this whodunnit story, it's still unclear why Pitan-Payne's family insists he should not be brought back to Nigeria.) ... It's painful to suggest that Soyinka's new novel might be anything less than a work of art—after all, he has been percolating on the idea for quite some time. But em>Chronicles is largely inaccessible to non-intellectuals, and florid beyond reason at times. More than that, the story's complexity makes it easy for readers to disengage if they're not intimately familiar with the inner workings of Nigerian politics.

In his first novel in nearly 50 years, Soyinka’s brilliance shines in a dark, sardonic depiction of an imagined Nigeria where greed, duplicity, and corruption reign supreme ... Soyinka’s novel offers rich commentary on political corruption, crime, and profiteering in a narrative that requires deep and sustained focus to fully appreciate its cryptic characters, interweaving plot lines, complex themes, and sharp intricacies and ironies.

... a sharp-edged satire ... Soyinka injects suspense as well with a whodunit plot. Those with a solid grounding in current Nigerian politics are most likely to pick up on allusions to events and personalities that will elude the lay reader. Still, the imaginatively satirical treatment of serious issues makes this engaging on multiple levels.

A richly satirical novel ... Soyinka’s sprawling tale abounds in sly references to current events in Nigeria, and his targets are many, not least of them politicians and self-styled holy men with bigger ambitions still ... Dazzling wordplay and subtle allusion mark this most welcome return to fiction.