Song of Prisoner

Okot p'Bitek · 1971 CE · Poem · East African · Contemporary

A man lies beaten on the floor of a cell in a newly independent African state, and the voices that come out of him — vagrant, assassin, patriot, hungry father — will not settle into one prisoner. He curses the fat men in motorcades, then imagines himself riding among them. Published alongside a companion song and awarded the Kenyatta Prize the following year.

Open Song of Prisoner in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

• ↓ Song of Malaya
  Okot p'Bitek · 1971 CE · Poem — companion to this

Attributes

Closest analogues

• Lettres persanes
  Montesquieu · 1721 CE · Novel

  60% · 9 shared
  PoliticalSatirePower & CorruptionFreedom vs FateThe Prisonvs Societyvs SelfSatiricalIronic
• The House of the Dead
  Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1862 CE · Novel

  60% · 8 shared
  PoliticalSuffering & EnduranceClass & InequalityFreedom vs FateThe Prisonvs Societyvs SelfElegiac
• Kongi's Harvest
  Wole Soyinka · 1965 CE · Play

  58% · 9 shared
  PoliticalSatirePower & CorruptionFreedom vs FateContemporaryThe Prisonvs SocietySatiricalIronic
• The Suns of Independence
  Ahmadou Kourouma · 1968 CE · Novel

  58% · 9 shared
  PoliticalSatirePower & CorruptionClass & InequalityContemporaryThe Prisonvs SocietySatiricalIronic
• Life and Fate
  Vasily Grossman · 1980 CE · Novel

  58% · 8 shared
  PoliticalPower & CorruptionSuffering & EnduranceFreedom vs FateContemporaryThe Prisonvs SocietyElegiac
• The Garlic Ballads
  Mo Yan · 1988 CE · Novel

  58% · 8 shared
  PoliticalPower & CorruptionSuffering & EnduranceClass & InequalityContemporaryThe Prisonvs SocietySatirical