Cover Art: Nonkosi Matrose

After Troy

Taban lo Liyong

After Troy, Taban lo Liyong’s book length poem, is an expansive and engaging elaboration of two classical Greek texts, Homer’s Odyssey and Aeschylus’s Oresteia. The poem is ultimately a philosophical enquiry into retribution and justice. Its focus is the homecoming from the Trojan war of two hero-kings, Odysseus and Agamemnon. In a sequence of poetic monologues, lo Liyong recreates their thoughts and speech, introducing dialogue from other characters, most of them women, who are not given a voice in the ancient texts.

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Always light-hearted and yet philosophical, Taban lo Liyong’s poetry flows effortlessly, [opening] technical and thematic frontiers that energise the modern African poetic tradition. Lo Liyong’s poetry is a fresh harvest of wit, humour, and wordplay that any reader will feel happy to indulge in.

– Tanure Ojaide

 

Date of publication: 2021

ISBN 978-1-928476-34-4 / ebook ISBN 978-1-928476-35-1
156 pages
210 x 148mm

R180.00

 

Taban lo Liyong 2023

 

Taban Lo Liyong, born 1936, is a South Sudanese/Ugandan author of poetry, fiction, drama, folktales, philosophy and literary criticism. He obtained an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1968, and has taught in universities in Uganda, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, the UK, the USA, Australia and Japan. He is still active as a Professor of Literature at the University of Juba in South Sudan.
Refusing the boundaries between the oral and the written word, folktales and experimentation, satire and political commentary, fiction and life, lo Liyong’s numerous writings bristle with biting satire, roguish comedy and a ferocious spirit of defiance.

Books published
Poetry
Frantz Fanon's Uneven Ribs (Heinemann, 1971)
Another Nigger Dead (Heinemann, 1972)
Ballads of Underdevelopment (East African Literature Bureau -EALB, 1975)
The Cows of Shambat (Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1992)
Carrying Knowledge up a Palm Tree (Africa World Press, 1998)
After Troy (Deep South, 2021)

Other genres (a selection)
Fixions (Heinemann,1968)
The Last Word (1969)
The Uniformed Man (EALB, 1971)
Meditations of Taban lo Liyong (Rex Collings, 1978)
Words That Melt a Mountain (East African Educational Books, 1996)
Homage to Onyame (Malthouse, 1997)
Translator: The Defence of Lawino by Okot p’Bitek (Fountain Publishers, 2001)

 

 

Additional information

Weight 0.5 kg

Reviews of this book

Review by Nobert Oluoch Ndisio of After Troy by Taban Lo Liyong    Author's Website, 2022

Interviews & Articles

Interview with Taban Lo Liyong by Sam Radiltlhalo    New Coin, 1997     text PDF

Interview with Taban Lo Liyong by Stacy Hardy and Paul Mason    Africa in Dialogue, (Brittle Paper link to inaugural Issue), 2017    text PDF

After Troy Introduction by John Jackson    text PDF

Article by Julius Sigei on Taban Lo Liyong    Paanluel Wël News, 2011

Article by Taban Lo Liyong: "Indigenous African Literary Forms May Determine the Future Course of World Literature"    English in Africa, 2018    text PDF

Afterword to After Troy by Taban Lo Liyong    text PDF

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