New Book about Bolaji

Ishmael Mzwandile Soqaga, the well known Bloemfontein based essayist, Pan-Africanist, critic, esssayist and intellectual has published his first book, titled Omoseye Bolaji: A voyage around his literary work. The book is the latest in a number of book-length studies published on the fecund writer, Omoseye Bolaji. Soqaga told Mangaung Issue: “I am happy the book finally came out at last. Bolaji has inspired so many writers and built so many of us with his powerful, diverse books.”

Mr Soqaga also disclosed that he had been working on the book for up to five years. “The protagonist in question (Bolaji) has published so many books and it is not easy to comprehensively evaluate and criticise them all. In the end I focused on about five, six of the books; with a general Overview” Meanwhile, critics and pundits are already hailing this new study across the board, likening it to renowned international studies on African writers over the years published by the likes of Gerald Moore, Dr Adele King, and Robert Fraser. But Soqaga himself humbly refuses to get carried away with all the praise. “I do not think my attempts can be likened to works churned out by those illustrious writers and critics,” he says. “But I am very flattered to even be mentioned in the same breath as such people. The reviews of my book I have been reading on the internet have all been very positive so far,” Literary critic, Pule Lechesa expressed delight over the publication of the book. “It’s great to see a book of real quality again,” he said. “Soqaga’s new book definitely adds cubits to the corpus of African critical writings. He took his time over the work and it shows,” - Report by T Masakala. First published in Mangaung Issue, 29 August 2012 edition. Page 6