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Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Michael Obiora
- Length: 21 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • The first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature gives us a tour de force, combining "elements of a murder mystery, a searing political satire and an Alice in Wonderland-like modern allegory of power and deceit" (Los Angeles Times).
In an imaginary Nigeria, a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr. Menka's hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Dr. Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne. The life of every party, Duyole is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York, but it now seems that someone is determined that he not make it there. And neither Dr. Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, or how powerful.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a literary hoot, a crafty whodunit, and a scathing indictment of political and social corruption. It is a stirring call to arms against the abuse of power from one of our fiercest political activists, who also happens to be a global literary giant.
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Critic reviews
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S MUST READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
"Though his work has spanned multiple genres—poetry, plays, memoirs and essays—[Soyinka's] new novel manages to chart fresh territory. . . . Chronicles combines elements of a murder mystery, a searing political satire and an Alice in Wonderland-like modern allegory of power and deceit." —Los Angeles Times
"It is Soyinka’s greatest novel, his revenge against the insanities of the nation’s ruling class and one of the most shocking chronicles of an African nation in the 21st century. It ought to be widely read." —Ben Okri, The Guardian
"A biting satire that looks at corruption in an imaginary contemporary Nigeria, Chronicles is also an intriguing and droll whodunit. . . . A brilliant story that takes on politics, class, corruption, and religion from the very first chapters. It highlights Soyinka’s lush, elegant language." —Publishers Weekly
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Story
In February 1991, Robert Maxwell triumphantly sailed into Manhattan harbor on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, to buy the ailing New York Daily News. Taxi drivers stopped their cabs to shake his hand, children asked for his autograph, and patrons of the hottest restaurant in Manhattan gave him a standing ovation while he dined. Ten months later, Maxwell disappeared off that same yacht in the middle of the night and was later found dead in the water. As John Preston reveals in this revealing biography, Maxwell’s death was as mysterious as his remarkable life.
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Don't make men like this anymore
- By Sylvia on 04-06-21
By: John Preston
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Proof of Life
- Twenty Days on the Hunt for a Missing Person in the Middle East
- By: Daniel Levin
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel Levin was at his office when he got a call from an acquaintance with an urgent, cryptic request to meet in Paris. A young man had gone missing in Syria. No government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. Could he? Would he? So begins a suspenseful, shocking, and at times brutal true story of one man’s search to find a missing person in Syria over twenty tense days.
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It was a true story.
- By stingray on 06-12-24
By: Daniel Levin
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A Suitable Boy (Dramatised)
- By: Vikram Seth
- Narrated by: Ayesha Dharker, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, full cast
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
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A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. The story unfolds through four middle class families: the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans, and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with.
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would prefer unabridged naration
- By Tamshine on 07-07-11
By: Vikram Seth
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Dracula's Child
- By: J.S. Barnes
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Emma Gregory
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania. But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition - and the older their son Quincey gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers' marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink, Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family. Quincey himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown.
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A very slow burn
- By Amazon Customer on 12-07-20
By: J.S. Barnes
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Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
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Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John Norton on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal
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The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
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A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim - translator
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
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Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
By: Milan Kundera, and others
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Wicked Autumn
- Booktrack Edition
- By: G. M. Malliet
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.
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Just OK
- By Jeanne on 08-05-21
By: G. M. Malliet
What listeners say about Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- A reader
- 08-03-24
Political Satire at its Best
A complex, dense story with several narrative strands that interweave time and again. At times I felt I had lost the thread, but it all came together again, the story was simply following one strand for a time, before merging or switching to another. The characters are vivid and complex. I kept guessing who is connected to whom and what how, as if it was a crime novel. In a way it is, a political crime, family crime.
The story seems utterly absurd on several levels, is full of black humor, satire, which are used to highlight topics such as corruption, avarice, manipulation of the population, family by blood versus family of choice, and friendship. I kept laughing, except at the bottom of it, the story is actually sad, disturbing. The way it is told versus what is told creates tension used artistically.
I enjoyed Soyinka’s storytelling, his ability to use language for his ends. I had never read anything by him before, unfortunately nothing else is available on Audible. This is not a beach read, you wouldn’t expect one from a Noble Prize winner. I loved the challenge of the story, enjoyed Soyinka’s creativity. I felt I was looking through somebody else’s eyes, recognizing characters you can find in history, learning new things even if they are about a fictional Nigeria. How fictional? This week the population of Nigeria declared a 10-day strike because while they don’t have enough money to feed themselves, the government indulges itself in paying with tax money for perks like new SUVs for all members of parliament. Free bags of rice are handed out, which are aptly called ‘palliatives’ and rejected as not a solution. In the book the palliative isn’t rice, it is more powerful, full of black humor.
I think listening to the story rather than reading it is helpful and gives it additional colour. I found the narrator excellent, the story was full of life with each character having a distinctive voice. Another reviewer commented on the narrator not pronouncing Nigerian names right, I cannot judge that, for me listening to him was full of joy and he pulled me into the story beyond what the words did already.
The almost 22 hours passed in no time, and I might listen to it again, so I can pick up the little hints how characters, storylines will be connected later on and enjoy the wonderful language, characters of Soyinka again.
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- O. Folaranmi
- 12-10-21
My Worst Audio Book Purchase Ever!
Listening to this audio book is one painful 21+ hours of torture for any Nigerian listener. There were a lot of Nigerian names of people, places and things used in this book, as well as a handful of common phrases, slangs and idioms, and the narrator mis-pronounced every single one. I mean, every single one! Very pathetic!
For a professional project of this nature, one would think that the producers would do one of the following:
1. Get a narrator that is familiar with most, if not all of the non-English words and phrases used in the book
2. Get the narrator to learn the correct pronunciation of the words - it was very obvious that the narrator made absolutely no efforts to learn how to pronounce any of the non-English words, as he felt he could just pronounce every word and name as if they were English words
3. As a last resort, encourage the Author to narrate his own work - it would have been a great joy listening to Professor Wole Soyinka himself
The narrator, though has a Nigerian surname, obviously had no Nigerian background nor familiarity with Nigerian names of any kind. Even foreigners would have done a better job of pronouncing the names of some of the cities and common slangs used in the book - I mean, how hard is it to pronounce correctly "Ibadan", "Oyo", or even "ogogoro", just to name a few?
It is highly recommended that this audio book be reproduced using a more suitable narrator that is fit for the purpose. This audio book would have been a lot more enjoyable, and the story rated higher if one had been able to hear the works correctly.
For the Nigerian readers out there, I would recommend that you buy and read the printed copy for yourself at this time. Don't spoil your listening pleasure!
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10 people found this helpful