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"the writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society's weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future."
Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995)

A Month and a Day and Letters
Ken Saro-Wiwa
Foreword by Wole Soyinka
to be published in December 2005
ISBN 0-9547023-5-2 Ext. 240 pages - Price £9.99 ($17.50)
Click here for ordering information

Ayebia Clarke Literary Agency & Publishing Ltd, 7 Syringa Walk, Banbury, Oxfordshire OX16 1FR. Tel:+44 (0)1295 709228. Fax:+44 (0)1295 267681 Website: www.ayebia.co.uk

Many people still remember how they felt when Ken Saro-Wiwa was judicially murdered. Some of us have spent the period trying to forget, as a strategy to mask our pain, but in the end you come to realise, as the Czech novelist Milan Kundera wrote: "the struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Ken Wiwa from a speech at the 'Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa' Commemoration. London 22 March 2005.

A Month and A Day & Letters includes an edited version of A Detention Diary - Ken Saro-Wiwa's own record of his arrest in July 1993, and a narrative of the history of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), and his ever-increasing commitment to the Ogoni cause.

This new edition has a foreword by the Nobel Laureate and fellow Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka. It also includes a 'Letter to My Father' ten years on from the brutal hanging, Saro-Wiwa’s eldest son, Ken Wiwa, writes to the man whose life and death seems more pertinent in the context of the central role that energy companies play in our daily lives and global politics.

In addition, there are letters smuggled to and from Ken during his final days in detention in 1995. Ken Saro-Wiwa was sentenced to death with eight other Ogoni after a trial by a 'kangaroo’ court', during which he was allowed no legal representation and denied the opportunity to deliver his final statement (included in this book) to the military appointed tribunal. Sanctioned by the General Sani Abacha dictatorship the sentence was carried out on 10 November 1995.

Among these letters are words of encouragement (and later condolence to Ken Wiwa and his family) from world leaders, writers and friends, including Nelson Mandela, Nadine Gordimer, Ethel Kennedy, Gordon and Anita Roddick. But there are also letters from ordinary people from all over the world, moved by his plight and the injustice of his detention, who wrote to express their support for him and his cause while he was in prison through International PEN. These letters have not been seen in public before and speak volumes for a man moved by a quest for justice for his Ogoni people through his writings and non-violent means of protest through MOSOP.

This book highlights his ideology, his cause, his ultimate sacrifice and the injustice of his death. It focuses on the Ogoni struggle against the multi-national Shell and the Nigerian military dictatorship. It gives an insight into the reasons for his elimination at all costs for daring to question the actions of Shell in polluting Ogoni land and for his criticisms of a corrupt regime financed largely by oil money.

The story of Ken Saro-Wiwa is a story that illustrates the consequences and dangers of living in a global economy powered by fossil fuel. Saro-Wiwa gave his life for the Ogoni people, and all oppressed peoples of the world but ultimately for a world that is sustainable, just and humane. If you want to know why Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged read this book.

'The writer is his cause,' he said. 'I am more and more convinced, more than ever, that the path of literature is the assured way to human salvation and civilisation. I hail the power of the pen' - In a letter to the International President of PEN, 3 September 1993

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