When one scholar published a book-length study of the writings of Wole Soyinka in 1993 and gave it the title Wole Soyinka Revisited, he was reflecting in that title the fact that at the time, there were already about eight other book-length studies or monographs on the Nigerian author in print. Since then, the number of books and monographs on Soyinka has grown steadily to the point that to date, studies devoted exclusively to Soyinka's works number more than a dozen and a half. And this is without reference to important works like Jonathan Peters' A Dance of Masks: Senghor, Achebe, Soyinka (1978), Tejumola Olaniyan's Scars of Conquests, Masks of Resistance (1995) and Kole Omotoso's Achebe or Soyinka (1996) which involve exhaustive comparison of Soyinka's writings with the works of other major African authors or writers from the African diaspora. Moreover, there are at least five collections of critical essays on Soyinka's works, with others planned or projected. Finally, there are several special issues of academic journals devoted specifically to the many facets of Soyinka's works and career.

Given this impressive number of full-length and full-scale studies of Soyinka, it does seem obligatory to explain why I or anyone else should set out to do yet another study of the Nigerian author.