Freedom and the Creative Space -- Stubborn Thread in the Loom of Being: The Writer as Memory of the World -- Squaring up to Africa's Future: A Writer's Reflections on the Predicaments of a Continent -- Of Prizes and Messiahs -- African Literature and the Crisis of Post-Structuralist Theorising -- Singers of a New Dawn: Nigerian Literature From the Second Generation On -- Behold the Feast; but Where's the Guest? -- The Longest Day -- The Travails of Efficiency -- Ibadan -- Yoruba Thought, English Words: A Poet's Journey Through the Tunnel of Two Tongues -- Thresholds and Millennial Crossings -- The Possibilities of Hope.