The Interpreters

The Interpreter is a novel by Nigerian Playwright Wole Soyinka. Through the novel, Soyinka deftly weaves memories of the past through scenes of the present as five friends move toward an uncertain future.

Quotes

• For how would he explain to her that the sluggish bilgewater which twice, when he called the paper, lapped the receiver at the other end seemed to evoke the same squelch as her piano-key armpits.
  • Phrase describing the movement of the dancers

• The “plop” continued some time before its meaning came clear to Egbo and he looked up at the leaking roof in disgust, then threw his beer into the rain muttering. “I don't need his pity. Someone tell God not to weep in my beer.
  • The “plop” in this quote is that of the rain

• He recalled that it had been the rainy season when he returned from Europe and America. Instead of heat he obtained electric shocks—once as he touched the faucet of a bath with his toes and another time through a finger as he dialed a number on the phone. When he told Mathias he said, “Na austerity measure. Government wan join three ministry together—Works, Electricity and Communication” and roared away at the idea.
  • Wole Soyinka describing change and effect in environments

• The rains of May become in July slit arteries of the sacrificial bull, a million bleeding punctures of the sky-bull hidden in convulsive cloud humps, black, overfed for this one event, nourished on horizon ops of endless choice grazing, distant beyond giraffe reach.
  • Wole Soyinka describing the effects of rain

• Cumulatively, these interpreters of the new Nigeria explore a society dominated by confusion, social climbing, corruption, and moral decadence.
  • The five friends hurdles they face towards a new Nigeria