The Freedom Fight a Novel of Resistance and Freedom (English Translation of Adebayo Faleti’s Omo Olokun Esin)

Description

Panela Olúbùnmi Smith’s The Freedom Fight is an Engish translation of Adébiyò Fálétís Omo Olokùn Esin. Though written in 1958 to coincide with Nigerian’s Independence (celebrated on October Ist 1960), Omo Olókün Esin was first published in 1970, long after the novel had gained pre-eminence in Yorubá letters. Fáléti’s imagination Was captured by a consuming interest in bow people would have liked to have expressed the “self-government now OF never!” slogan that rents the air in the decade before formal negotiations for independence were begun. Set in 19th century traditional Yorùbáland. The Freedom Fight is a historical tale about feudalism and enslavement, freedom, and independence. t chronicles the attendant frustrations of advancing any kind of liberation movement in a rule-of-fear, exploitive system, sanctioned by traditional authority. Ajàyí, the idealist son of Chicf Olókùn-Esin, mounts a violent revolt against the injustices of enslavement and feudal practices, He eventually wins freedom and independence for the people of Okò from years of servitude under Olúmokò, signaling the beginning of the end of feudalism in Yorubáland. An unrivaled eloquent marker of a historical and linguistic age gone by, Omo Olókùn Eşin remains the longest novel and sole example of the revolutionary novel sub-genre in Yorùbá literary corpus. More than a work of literature, this English translation affords the modern reader a primer on Yorubá culture.