Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (born
13 July 1934) is a
Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He won the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African to be so honoured. In 1994, he was designated United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (
UNESCO) Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.
One of the most prominent members of the eminent
Ransome-Kuti family, his mother Grace Eniola, was the daughter of
Rev. Cannon JJ Ransome-Kuti, sister to Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti and Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, making Soyinka cousins to the late
Fela Kuti, the late
Beko Ransome-Kuti, the late
Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and
Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.
Soyinka was born into a
Yoruba family, specifically, a
Remo family in
Isara-Remo on July 13, 1934. His father was Christian Clergy, Canon SA Soyinka ( aka "Teacher pupa" (light skinned teacher). He received a primary school education in Abeokuta and attended secondary school at Government College,
Ibadan. He then studied at the University College,
Ibadan (1952-1954)where he founded the pyrates confraternity (an anti-corruption and justice seeking Student organization) and the
University of Leeds (1954-1957) from which he received an First class honours degree in
English Literature. He worked as a play reader at the
Royal Court Theatre in London before returning to Nigeria to study
African drama. He taught in the Universities of
Lagos, Ibadan, and Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife). He became a Professor of
Comparative Literature at the then university of Ife in 1975). He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the same University.
Soyinka has played an active role in
Nigeria's political history. in 1965, he made a broadcast demanding the cancellation of the rigged Western Nigeria Regional Elections following his seizure of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio. He was arrested, arraigned but freed on a technicality by Justice Esho. In 1967, during the
Nigerian Civil War he was arrested by the Federal Government of General
Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for his attempts at brokering a peace between the warring Nigerian and Biafran parties. While in prison he wrote poetry on tissue paper which was published in a collection titled Poems from Prison. He was released 22 months later after international attention was drawn to his unwarranted imprisonment. His experiences in prison are recounted in his book
The Man Died: Prison Notes. 1972.
He has been an implacable, consistent and outspoken critic of many Nigerian military dictators, and of political tyrannies worldwide, including the
Mugabe regime in
Zimbabwe. A great deal of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". This activism has often exposed him to great personal risk, most notable during the government of General
Sani Abacha (1993-1998), which pronounced a death sentence on him "in absentia ". During Abacha's regime, Soyinka escaped from Nigeria via the "Nadeco Route" on motorcycle. While abroad, he visited parliaments and conferred with world leaders to impose a regime of sanctions against the brutal Abacha regime. These actions and his setting up of the Radio Kudirat helped immensely in securing Nigeria's return to civilian democratic governance. While living abroad (mainly in the United States, he was a professor at
Emory University in Atlanta). When civilian rule returned in 1999, Soyinka returned to a hero's welcome back in Lagos, Nigeria. He accepted an Emeritus Professorship at Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) on the condition that the university bar all former military officers from the position of chancellor. Soyinka is currently the Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing at the English department of the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the President's Marymount Institute Professor in Residence at
Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.
In 2005, he became one of the spearheads of an alternative National conference -
PRONACO. Wole Soyinka is a connoisseur of wine and loves outdoor sports such as hunting.
BiographyEarly lifeSoyinka was born on 13 July 1934, in the town of Isara-Remo,Ogun State in
Nigeria's
Western Region (at that time a British dominion), as second of six children of Samuel Ayodele Soyinka and Grace Eniola Soyinka. His father, whom Wole often refers to as S.A. or "Essay" in literalized form, was the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abekuta. Wole's mother, dubbed "Wild Christian" by Wole, owned a shop in the nearby market and was a respected political activist within the women's movement in the local community. She followed the Anglican faith, although among his father's family and in the vicinity, there were many followers of the indigenous
Yorùbá religious tradition. Soyinka since the beginning had grown in an atmosphere of religious
syncretism, which has had a great influence on his yet forming personality, because as a little boy he had contact with the traditional Yorùbá beliefs as well as
Christianity.
In 1939 when Wole was barely five years old,
World War II erupted. The home of the Soyinka family had electricity and radio (chiefly thanks to his father), so little he ened with curiosity to the news from war-torn Europe. This information was almost completely dominated by
Adolf Hitler, leader of
Nazi Germany.
In 1940, after attending St. Peters Primary School, Soyinka went to Abekuta Grammar School, where he won several prizes for literary composition. In 1946 he was accepted by Government College in
Ibadan, at that time one of Nigeria’s elite secondary school. Upon completion of his studies there, Soyinka moved to
Lagos where he found employment as a clerk. During this time he wrote some radio plays and short stories that were broadcast on Nigerian radio stations. After finishing his course in 1952, Soyinka began studies at
University College in Ibadan, connected with
University of London. During this course he studied
English literature,
Greek, and
Western history.
In the year 1953-1954, his second and last at
University College, Ibadan, Soyinka commenced work on his first publication, a short radio broadcast for Nigerian Broadcasting Service National Programme called "Keffi's Birthday Threat," which was broadcast in July 1954 on Nigerian Radio Times. Whilst at university, Soyinka and six others founded the
Pyrates Confraternity, the first
confraternity in Nigeria. He then moved to
Leeds,
England to attend the
University of Leeds.
Soyinka gives a detailed account of his early life in
Aké: The Years of Childhood, which chronicles his experiences until about the age of ten.
Studies abroad and at home
Later in 1954 Soyinka relocated to
England, where he continued his studies in English literature, under the supervision of his mentor
Wilson Knight. He became acquainted then with a number of young, gifted British writers. Before defending his B.A., Soyinka successfully engaged in literary fiction, publishing several pieces of comedic nature. He also worked as an editor for The Eagle, an infrequent periodical of humorous character. In a page two column in The Eagle, he wrote commentaries on academic life, often stingingly criticizing his university peers. Well known for his sharp tongue, he is said to have courteously defended, affronted and insulted female colleagues.
After completing his studies, he remained in
Leeds with the intention of earning an M.A. Influenced by his promoter, Soyinka decided to attempt to merge European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage. In 1958 his first major play emerged, titled The Swamp Dwellers. One year later, he wrote
The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy which garnered interest from several members of the London Royal Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka left his doctoral studies and moved to London, where he worked as a play reader for Royal Court Theatre. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan.
However, by 1960, Soyinka had received the Rockefeller Research Fellowship from his alma mater in Ibadan, and returned to Nigeria. In March he produced his new satire The Trials of Brother Jero, which established his fame as Nigeria’s foremost dramatist. One of his most recognized plays, A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day. On 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. Also in 1960, Soyinka established an amateur ensemble acting company which would consume much of his time over the next few years: the Nineteen-Sixty Masks.
In addition to these activities, Soyinka published various works satirizing the "emergency" in the
Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the federal government. This had usurped the democratically-elected, Yorùbá-based
Action Group (AG) political party by installing the
Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), an amalgamation of conservative Yoruba interests backed by the largely Northern-dominated federal government. The increasingly militarized occupation of the Western Region eventually led to a disequilibrium in power, placing the more left-leaning Action Group and the Igbo-centric
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in tenuous positions, as national politics began catering exclusively to more conservative interests. This imbalance eventually led to a coup by military officers under Major Kaduna Nzeogwu.
With the money gained from the Rockefeller Foundation for research on
African Theater, Soyinka bought a
Land Rover and began traveling throughout the country as a researcher with the Department of English Language of the University College in Ibadan. In an essay published at this time, he criticized
Leopold Senghor's
Négritude as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. "A tiger does not shout its tigritude," he declared, "it acts."
In December 1962, his essay "Towards a True Theater" was published, and he began working for the Department of English Language at
Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife Soyinka discussed current affairs with "negrophiles," and on several occasions openly opposed government censorship. At the end of 1963, his first feature-length movie emerged, Culture in Transition. In April 1964, his famous novel The Interpreters was published in London. That December, together with other scientists and men of theater, he founded the
Drama Association of Nigeria. This same year he resigned his university post, as a protest against imposed pro-government behavior by authorities. A few months later, he was arrested for the first time, accused of underlying tapes during reproduction of recorded speech of the winner of Nigerian elections, but he was released after a few months of confinement, as a result of protests by the international community of writers. This same year he also wrote two more dramatic pieces: Before the Blackout, the comedy Kongi’s Harvest, and a radio play for London BBC called The Detainee. At the end of the year he was promoted to headmaster and senior lecturer in the Department of English Language at
Lagos University.
Soyinka's political speeches at that time criticized the cult of personality and government corruption in African dictatorships. April 1965 brought a revival of his play Kongi’s Harvest at the International Festival of Negro Art in
Dakar, Senegal, where another of his plays, The Road, was awarded the Grand Prix. In June, Soyinka produced his play The Lion and The Jewel for
Hampstead Theatre Club in London.
Civil war involvement and imprisonmentThe coup led by Major Chukwuma K Nzeogwu in January 1966 was counteracted by another coup in July of the same year, this time led by a cabal of largely
Northern officers, placing General
Yakubu Gowon in the position of head of state. Immediately following the coup, sectarian violence erupted as many Igbo living outside of their homeland in the southeast were subjected to violent retaliatory action, which many considered to be of genocidal proportions. Droves of Igbos were forced to return home, where calls for secession from the Nigerian state increased under military governor
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.
After becoming chief of Cathedral of Drama at
University of Ibadan, Soyinka who had gained considerable respect within Nigeria would involve himself in the destabilizing political situation. In August 1967, he secretly and unofficially met Ojukwu in the
Southeastern town of
Enugu, with the aim of averting civil war. For his attempts at negotiating a peaceful solution to the conflict, Soyinka was forced to commence living underground.
However, his involvement in the developing national crisis did not end here. Wole returned to Enugu to meet with one Victor Banjo, a Yorùbá who had been swayed to the Biafran side. Banjo intimated to Soyinka a message of critical importance in regards to Biafra's goals, which he claimed were "national liberation" for the whole of Nigeria. For these efforts, Banjo sought the support of Western military leaders; in particular, he delivered Banjo's message directly to
Lieutenant Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, who had recently been appointed to commanding officer for the
Western Region. Four evenings after Soyinka returned to the West, Biafran forces invaded the Midwest region, an area which previously maintained de facto neutrality; this altered the terms and conditions of the war drastically, as the Biafrans had turned into both secessionists and expansionists.
Following the occupation of the Midwest, Soyinka met Obasanjo face-to-face to relay the goals of the Biafrans to the man in control of the West. Unfortunately Obasanjo's decision to side with the Nigerian federation had already been made. The invasion of the Midwest eventually sparked counter-attacks into the Midwest by federal government forces, signaling the commencement of civil war. Obasanjo disclosed his meeting with Soyinka to his superiors, who declared Wọle a traitor and convened search parties to obtain Soyinka for arrest, which they eventually did. Soyinka was then incarcerated until the end of the unfolding civil war.
He endured imprisonment for 22 months as his country slid into
civil war between the federal government and the
Biafrans. Though he was refused basic materials, such as books, pens, and paper, for continuing his creative work during much of his imprisonment, he did manage to write a significant body of poems and notes criticizing the Nigerian government. Despite his imprisonment, in September 1967, his play The Lion and The Jewel was produced in Accra, and in November The Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were produced in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York. He also published a collection of his poetry entitled Idanre and Other Poems.
Idanre, considered by many to be a masterpiece, was inspired by Soyinka’s visit to the sanctuary of the Yorùbá deity
Ogun, whom Soyinka regards irreligiously as his companion deity, kindred spirit, and protector.
In 1968, also in New York, the group Negro Ensemble Company showed Kongi’s Harvest. While still imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Yoruba a fantastical novel by his compatriot D.O. Fagunwa, called The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga.
Release and literary productivityIn October 1969, when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka was released from prison. For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend’s farm in southern
France, where he sought solitude after the period of mental stagnation. From this experience emerged one of his most prominent masterpieces, “The Bacchae of Euripides”. He soon published out of London a tome of his poetry based on his experience in prison, Poems from Prison. At the end of the year, he returned to his office of Headmaster of Cathedral of Drama in Ibadan, and cooperated in the founding of the literary periodical “Black Orpheus”.
In 1970 he produced the play “Kongi’s Harvest”, while simultaneously creating a film by the same title. In June 1970, he concluded another play, called “Madman and Specialists”. With the intention of gaining theatrical experience, along with the group of fifteen actors of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the famous
Eugene O’Neil Memorial Theatre Centre in
Waterford,
Connecticut in the
United States, where his latest play premiered. In 1971 his poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published. While “Madmen and Specialists” was exposed afresh in Ibadan, Soyinka took the lead role as the murdered first Prime Minister of the
Republic of the Congo,
Kinshasa, in the Paris production of "Murderous Angels". His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection of notes from prison, was issued the same year. In April, concerned about the political situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began a few years of voluntary exile. In July, in Paris, fragments of his famous play “The Dance of The Forests” were performed.
In 1972 he was declared an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds. Soon thereafter, another of his novels, Season of Anomy, came out, in addition to his Collected Plays, published by the Oxford University Press. The same year
National Theatre of London, which actually commissioned the play, put on a performance of “The Bacchae of Euripides”. In 1973 the plays "Camwood on the Leaves", and "Jero's Metamorphosis" were first published. From 1973-1975, Soyinka devoted himself to scientific activity. He underwent one year probation at
Churchill College of
Cambridge University, and gave a series of lectures at a number of European universities.
In 1974 “Collected Plays, Volume II” was issued by Oxford University Press. In 1975 Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor for “Transition”, a magazine based in the
Ghanaian capital,
Accra (where he moved for some time). Soyinka utilized his columns in Transition to once again attack the “negrofiles” (in his essay “Neo-Tarsanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition”), and military regimes, protesting against the military junta of
Idi Amin in
Uganda. After the political turnover in Nigeria, and the subversion of Gowon's military regime in 1975 he returned to his homeland and re-assumed his position of the Cathedral of
Comparative Literature at the
University of Ife.
In 1976 the poetry collection Ogun Abibiman appeared, and a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World, in which Soyinka explores the genesis of mysticism in African theatre and, using examples from the literatures of both continents, compares and contrasts European and African cultures. At The Institute of African Studies at the
University of Legon in Ghana, he delivered a series of guest lectures and became a professor at the University of Ife. In October, the French version of “The Dance of The Forests” was performed in
Dakar, while in Ife “Death and The King’s Horseman” premiered.
In 1977 one of his greatest plays, an adaptation of Bertold Brecht's "Three Penny Opera" called “Opera Wonyosi”, was staged, and in 1979 he both directed and acted in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's drama “The Biko Inquest”, a work based on the story of
Steve Biko, a
South African student and human rights activist beaten to death by
Apartheid police forces. In 1981 Wọle Soyinka’s first autobiographical novel Ake: The Years of Childhood was released.
Soyinka founded another theatrical group (after Nineteen-Sixty Masks), called Guerrilla Unit, its aim being to cooperate with local communities analyzing their actual problems and then responding to some of their grievances in dramatic sketches. In 1983 the play “Requiem for a Futurologist” had its initial performance at the University of Ife. In July one of Soyinka's musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-play record titled “I Love My Country”, where a number of famous Nigerian popular musicians play songs composed by and provided with lyrics by Wole Soyinka. In 1984, he directed his new movie "Blues for a Prodigal", which premiered the same year as a new play, “A Play of Giants”.
The years 1975-1984 were for Soyinka a period of increased political activity. During that time he was among the authorities at The University of Ife; among other duties, he was responsible for the security of public roads. He continuously criticized the corruption in the government of democratically-elected President
Shehu Shagari, and often found himself at odds with his military successor,
Mohammadu Buhari. In 1984 a Nigerian court banned The Man Died and in 1985 the play "Requiem for a Futurologist" went into print in London.
In the midst of several violent and repressive African regimes, Soyinka was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, as one “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence” becoming the first African laureate. His Nobel acceptance speech was devoted to
South African freedom-fighter
Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was a humane and characteristically outspoken criticism of
apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the indigenous population by the
Nationalist South African government. In 1986, he received another award - the Agip Prize for Literature.
In 1988, his new collection of poems Mandela's Earth, and Other Poems was published, while in Nigeria another collection of essays entitled Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture appeared. The year 1990, the second portion of his memoir called Isara: A Voyage Around Essay was released. In July 1991 the
BBC African Service transmits his radio play “A Scourge of Hyacinths”, and the next year (in June 1992) in Siena (Italy), his play “From Zia with Love” has its premiere. Both the performances are very bitter political parodies, based on events which took place in Nigeria in the 1980’s. In 1993 Soyinka was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Harvard University. The next year appears another part of his autobiography Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946-1965). The following year brings the publication of the play “The Beatification of Area Boy”. On 21 October 1994 Soyinka is appointed
UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication. In November 1994 Soyinka flees from Nigeria through the border with Benin and then to the United States. In 1996 his book The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis is first published.
In 1997 Wole Soyinka was charged with treason by the government of General
Sani Abacha. In 1999 a new volume of poems of Wole Soyinka entitled Outsiders was released. His newest play, released in 2001, "King Baabu" is another strong, political satire on the theme of African dictatorship. In 2002 a collection of his poems Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known is printed by Methuen. And in 2004 Bankole Olayebi publishes A Life is Full, an illustrated biography of Wole Soyinka, with more than 600 photographs dating from 1934. In April 2006, his memoirs, titled "You Must Set Forth at Dawn", were published by Random House. In 2006 he cancelled his keynote speech for the annual
S.E.A. Write Awards Ceremony in
Bangkok to protest the
Thai military's successful coup against the government.
In April 2007 Wole Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Presidential elections held two weeks earlier in his native Nigeria because of the widespread fraud and violence that characterised the process.
In 2009, "The Literary/Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka" was published by Yemi D. Ogunyemi. This book is dedicated to him for his literary, political and philosophical contributions to the Africans in Africa and Africans in Diaspora. The book is also an edifice celerating his 75th Birthday in July 13, 2009. One of the chapters in the book, "Telephone Conversation," which he had with his London landlady in 1962 reveals that the political philosophy of Wole Soyinka actually began in 1962.
Bibliography Memoirs
The Man Died : Prison NotesAké: The Years of ChildhoodIsara: A Voyage around EssayIbadan: The Penkelemes Years: a memoir 1946-65You Must Set Forth at DawnPoetry collections
A Big Airplane Crashed Into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison)
Idanre and other poems
Mandela's Earth and other poems
Ogun Abibiman
Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known
Abiku
"After the Deluge"
"Telephone Conversation"
EssaysNeo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition
Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture
Myth, Literature and the African World
"From Drama and the African World View"
The Burden of Memory The Muse of Forgiveness
MoviesCulture in Transition
Blues For a Prodigal
Awards and honors1967: Head of the Department of Theater Arts, University of Ibadan; June: "The Writer in a Modern African State;" August to October 1969 imprisoned for writings sympathetic to secessionist Biafra; September: The Lion and the Jewel produced Accra; November: Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed produced, Greenwich Mews Theatre, New York; Idanre and Other Poems.
April 1968: Kongi's Harvest, produced by Negro Ensemble Company, New York.
February 1969: The Road produced by Theatre Limited, Kampala, Uganda; Poems from Prison, London.
August 1970: Completes and directs Madmen and Specialists with Ibadan University Theare Arts Company in New Haven, Connecticut (at Yale?); play tours to Harlem; directs plays by Pirandello and others; Kongi's Harvest (film).
1971: A Shuttle in the Crypt (poems); March: revives Madmen and Specialists in Ibadan; acts Patrice Lumumba in John Littlewood's French production of Conor Cruise O'Brien's Murderous Angels, Paris; testifies before Kazeem Enquiry on violation of students' rights.
1972: Publishes his prison notes, The Man Died, London; July: produces extracts from A Dance of the Forests in Paris.
1973: Honorary Ph. D., University of Leeds; Season of Anomy (novel); Collected Plays I; August: National Theatre, London, produces Bacchae of Euripides, which it commissioned.
1973-74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of English, University of Sheffield; Collected Plays II.
1975: Edited Poems of Black Africa, London and New York; "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Tradition" (essay); attacks Idi Amin in
Transition.
1976: Ogun Abibiman (poems); Myth, Literature, and the African World; Visiting Professor, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon; Professor, University of Ife; September: Nairobi High School production of A Dance of the Forests; October: French production of A Dance of the Forests, Dakar, Gambia; December: produces Death and the King's Horseman, Ife.
1978: "Language as Boundary" (essay).
1981: Aké: The Years of Childhood (autobiography); Opera Wonyosi, an adaptation of Brecht's Three Penny Opera; "The Critic and Society: Barthes, Leftocracy, and Other Mythologies" (essay).
1982: Blues for the Prodigal (film) released; "Cross Currents: The 'New African' after Cultural Encounters" (essay).
1983:
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
December 1983: Die Still, Rev. Dr. Godspeak (radio play); Requiem for a Futurologist (play) produced at Ife university; Blues for a Prodigal (film); "Shakespeare and the Living Dramatist" (essay); (July) - Unlimited Liability Company (phonograph recording).
1984: A Play of Giants (play).
1985: Requiem for a Futorologist published; "Climates of Art" (Herbert Read Memorial Lecture), Institute of Contemporary Art, London.
1986:
Nobel Prize for Literature. "The External Encounter: Ambivalence in African Arts and Literature" (essay), A Play of Giants (play), Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University; Agip Prize for Literature; 1986 (October); Awarded of Nigeria's second highest honour, Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR.;
1987: Six Plays; Childe Internationale (play) republished.
1989: "The Search" (short story).
1991: Sisi Clara Workshop on Theatre (Lagos); A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play) BBC African Service; "The Credo of Being and Nothingness" (The First Rev. Olufosoye Annual Lecture in Religion, delivered at the University of Ibadan on 25 January 1991; published.
1992: From Zia With Love.
1993: honorary doctorate, Harvard University.
1994: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946-1965) (autobiography); Memories of a Nigerian Childhood; Flees Nigeria (November).
1995: The Beatification of Area Boy.
1996: The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis.
March 1997: Charged with treason by military dictatorship. Considered one of Africa's poets alongside Cesair, Senghor, Ohaeto, B'tek, Okigbo, Ohanyido, Okara, Clark and so forth.
2004: Reith Lecturer for BBC Radio 4, discussing
A Climate of Fear.
2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University. Together with Nigerian elder statesman Chief Anthony Enahoro, he convened an alternative national confab under the aegis of PRONACO (Pro -national conference group). On 26 November 2005 he was conferred with the chieftaincy title of
Akinlatun of Egbaland by the Alake (King) of the Egba people of Yorubaland where he hails from.
Trivia
Wole Soyinka is a cousin of the famous African Musician
Fela Kuti.
QUOTES
- Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom
Well, first of all I`ll say that I come alive best in theater.
Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you`re deprived of it.
- There`s something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
There`s a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it`s being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience. - There are different kinds of artists and very often, I`ll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
- The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don`t consider myself a novelist.
- The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
- See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
- Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
One, a mass movement from within, which, as you know, is constantly being put down brutally but which, again, regroups and moves forward as is happening right now as we are speaking.
One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
- My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.
- Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there`s a lot of work to be done
