NEWS that Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka had, on the occasion of his 76th birthday lecture, formed a new political party would surely not come as a surprise to many.

Title: You Must Set Forth at Dawn

Author: Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, born in Bekuta in the west of Nigeria, nearly spent his whole life running away from the despots who ruled Africa's most populous country with a consistent iron first.

He'd later flee into exile in November 1994.

Compatible with his vast body of work - literary and political - Soyinka's memoir, first published in 1987 by Random House, is a tome.

As he locates his role in the gore that is the politics of Nigeria, from one era of dictatorial misrule to another, the reader alternates between the life of Soyinka and the story of Nigeria.

As he continued to whet the appetite of the reading public with such opiates as The Credo of Being and Nothingness and The Jero Plays, the writer-playwright was a thorn on the side of the rulers.

And as he travelled the world on his crusade to make Nigeria a civilised member among the world's nations, newspapers back home wrote extensively on how he was a wanted man - dead or alive.

This is the same Nigeria that his own cousin, the late saxophonist Fela Ransome Kuti, wanted nothing to do with.

It is the same Nigeria that killed the likes of Moshood Abiola and Ken Saro-Wiwa.

It is a country Soyinka had dedicated his life to see change.

And no one knows it better!

From the time Soyinka helped procure arms for his comrades in the Biafra War, to urging the world from podiums in its capitals to the formation of the Democratic Front for People Federation, his life story is married to that of his country - a place he no doubt loves with a passion.

Soyinka will be in Johannesburg in a week or two, free to speak about Nigeria and without having to look over his shoulder for Sani Abacha's goons.

This is one you do not read in one sitting - you nibble and keep going back.