High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Death and the King`s Horseman is a play by Wole Soyinka based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during British colonial rule: the ritual suicide of the horseman of an important chief was prevented by the intervention of the colonial authorities. In addition to the British intervention, Soyinka calls the horseman`s own conviction toward suicide into question, posing a problem that throws off the community`s balance.