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In
the Shadow of a Saint:
A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy
Ken Wiwa
Ken Wiwa is a journalist who contributes regularly to newspapers throughout
Europe, North America, and Africa. He currently lives in Canada with
his famly, where he writes for the Toronto Globe and Mail and is senior
resident writer at Massey College at the University of Toronto. He travels
to Nigeria several times a year, and is currently working toward the
establishment of the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation, an organization that will
set up a secondary school in Ogoni, offer scholarships to Ogoni children,
and maintain his father's gravesite. Regarding his book, In the Shadow
of a Saint, we read: "Riveting, searingly honest, and deeply moving.
It is a splendid monument to an outstanding man." —Archbishop
Desmond Tutu
"All the ingredients of a Shakespearean drama. You feel for him. You feel
for his father. His elegantly written book is a weave of Nigerian and
family history, both turbulent, both tragic, neither without hope. It
is, moreover, a story of being trapped in history; the children of heroes
who find their lives shaped by their parents'." —The Observer
This accomplished memoir is part primer on the modern Nigerian nation
state, part biography of the martyred writer and activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa,
and part examination of the struggle that inevitably occurs when a son
tries to establish an identity beyond the shadow of a successful father.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed in November 1995. One of Nigeria's best-loved
writers and human rights activists, his death was headline news internationally.
The name Ken Saro-Wiwa became a potent symbol of the struggle between
a traditional way of life and the juggernaut of global commercial interests.
Saro-Wiwa's son, Kenule Bornale Tsaro-Wiwa ("In troubled times I
am fearless—first son of Wiwa"), was born in Nigeria, then
raised and schooled in England. Much is expected of those to whom much
is given, and the father expected his son to return to his native land
and take up the struggle for which so many had fought, suffered, and
died. The son resisted, distancing himself even to the point of changing
his name, until his father was arrested and sentenced to be hanged, leaving
him no choice but to publicize his father's plight and take up the fight
to save his life. With the refusal of the world's leaders, including
Nelson Mandela, to press the condemned man's cause, the son's efforts
ended in failure, but the journey changed Ken Wiwa's life. He went looking
for his father and ended up finding himself.
Program recording date and length: 10-22-01 ~ 59 Minutes
