There are so many factors and fronts from which an autobiography can be criticized. Ake: The Years of Childhood is an autobiography written and based on the childhood encounters of Wole Soyinka. It highlights the enchanting accounts of the author’s childhood experience in a small town of Abeokuta located in Western Nigeria. While most childhood experience exhibits various similarities, the region of child development highly affects one’s childhood experience. This autobiography presents the childhood experiences exhibited across the region of West Africa. While these encounters may not represent Africa as a whole, there are certain childhood encounters only an African child can relate to. Therefore, the premise that Wole Soyinka's autobiography does not represent African childhood as a whole is false (Soyinka 13).
It is important to note that universal appeal is not a valid basis upon which this autobiography or any other autobiography should be judged. It is not mandatory for an autobiography to possess universal appeal. This is because it highlights the personal life encounters of the author; a factor that most people across the global can relate to. It is, therefore, wrong to assert or judge an autobiography based on its universal appeal. The child’s perspective employed by the author makes it understandable why one would judge this autobiography based on its universal appeal (Soyinka 13). The literature is set and relayed, although through adult delivery, from the perspective of a child. As a consequence, it fails to meet and address some of the issues most autobiography addresses in their literary work. Most of the African autobiographies do not address the issues faced by the continent; instead, they hide the issues through the use of third party characters.
Works Cited
Soyinka, Wole. Ake: The years of childhood. Collings, 1981.
