One of the foremost living African writers here analyses the interconnecting worlds of myth, ritual and literature in Africa. The ways in which the African world perceives itself as a cultural entity, and the differences between its essential unity of experience and literay form and the sense of division pervading Wester literature, are just some of the issues addressed. The centrality of ritual gives drama a prominent place, but Soyinka deals in equally illuminating ways with contemporany poetry and fiction, demonstrating the undeniable importance of African criticism today.