Wole Soyinka

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Akinwande Oluwo Soyinka (Yoruba: Akinwóyinka), born 13 July 1934, is a Nigerian playwright, poet, and essayist.

He was given the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, making him the first African to be honoured in this category. Soyinka was born in Abeokuta to a Yoruba family.

He attended Government College in Ibadan in 1954, followed by University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England.

He spent time in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, performing at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

He went on to write plays that were staged and broadcast in both countries, in theatres and on radio.

He was instrumental in Nigeria's political history and the country's fight against Britain's independence from Great Britain.

He seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio in 1965 and announced a call for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections.

During the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of GM Yakubu Gowon and placed in solitary confinement for two years, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.

"The oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the foot's color" has piqued much of his writing.

Soyinka emerged from Nigeria on a motorcycle during General Sani Abacha's (1993–98) reign. Abacha's death sentence was later declared against him "in absentia." Soyinka returned to Nigeria in 1999 with civilian rule restored to Nigeria. Soyinka, a professor of Comparative Literature (1975 to 1999) at Obafemi Awolowo University, which was then known as the University of Ife.

He was named professor emeritus in 1999 after civilian rule was restored to Nigeria.

He first taught at Cornell University, 1991 to 1991, then Emory University, where he was named Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts in 1996.

Soyinka has taught Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as a scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, USA. He has also worked at Oxford, Harvard, and Yale.

Soyinka received the Europe Theatre Award in December 2017 for those who have "contributed to the establishment of cultural activities that promote knowledge and knowledge sharing among peoples."

Life and work

In the city of Abokuta, Nigeria, a descendant of the kings of Isara, Soyinka, was born the second of seven children and at the time a British Dominion. His siblings were Atinuke "Tinu" Aina Soyinka, Femi Soyinka, Yeside Soyinka, Omofolabo "Folabo") Ajayi-Soyinka and Kayode Soyinka, with Femi Soyinka, Femi Soyinka, Nomine Soyinka, Noki Soyinka, Femi Soyinka, Yeside Soyinka Folashade Soyinka's younger sister died on her first birthday. Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he referred to as S.A. or "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abokuta. The elder Soyinka was a cousin of the Odemo, or King of Isara-Remo Samuel Akinsanya, Nigeria's founding father, with strong family ties. Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he referred to as the "Wild Christian"), Soyinka's mother (whom he dubbed "Wild Christian") ran a shop in the nearby market. She was a political activist in the local community's women's movement. She was also an Anglican. Soyinka grew up in a religious atmosphere of syncretism with influences from both cultures. He was born in a religious family, attended church services, and performing in the choir from an early age; however, Soyinka himself became an atheist later in life. Because of his father's work, he was able to get electricity and radio at home. In his book Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), he writes extensively about his childhood.

His mother, who was one of the most prominent members of the Ransome-Kuti family, was Reigning's granddaughter, Rev. Canon J. Ransome-Kuti's sole daughter, Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, was born in 1970, and he was therefore a niece to Olusegun Ransome-Kuti, Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, and niece Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Fela Kuti, the human rights campaigner Beko Ransome-Kuti, politician Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti were among Soyinka's first cousins to be banned. Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, as well as dancer Yeni Kuti, are among his second cousins. Femi Soyinka's younger brother became a medical doctor and a university professor.

Soyinka's 1940, after attending St. Peter's Primary School in Abeokuta, went to Abeokuta Grammar School, where he received many accolades for literary composition. He was accepted by Government College in Ibadan, then one of Nigeria's top secondary schools, in 1946. He began studying at University College Ibadan (1952–54), which is affiliated with the University of London, after finishing his course at Government College in 1952. He wrote about English literature, Greek, and Western history. Molly Mahood, a British literary scholar, was one of his lecturers. Soyinka began working on "Keffi's Birthday Treat," a short radio play for Nigerian Broadcasting Service that was broadcast in July 1954, in the year 1953–54, his second and last at University College. Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student group at university, Nigeria's first confraternity.

Soyinka moved to England later in 1954, where he continued his English literature studies under the direction of his mentor Wilson Knight at the University of Leeds (1954–57). He worked with a number of young, gifted British writers. Soyinka began writing and working as editor for The Eagle, a satirical publication that sometimes mocked his university peers; he wrote a column on academic life in which he frequently mocked his undergraduate peers.

Soyinka stayed in Leeds and started working on an MA after graduating with a higher second-class degree. He planned to write new pieces blending European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural roots. The Swamp Dwellers (1958), his first major play, was followed by The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy that piqued the attention of many members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka was encouraged to London, where he spent time as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. Both of his plays were produced in Ibadan during the same period. In Nigeria, they were dealing with the uneasy link between progress and tradition.

His play The Invention was the first of his works to be performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1957. At that time, his only published poems were poems "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour," which were both published in the Nigerian newspaper Black Orpheus. Ulli Beier, a German scholar who had been teaching at the University of Ibadan since 1950, founded this in 1957.

Soyinka was given a Rockefeller Research Fellowship at University College in Ibadan, his alma mater, for study into African theatre, and he returned to Nigeria. Soyinka arranged Jahn to coeditor of the literary periodical Black Orpheus, based on Jean-Paul Sartre's "Orphée Noir," released as a prelude to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor), for its fifth issue (November 1959). In the dining hall at Mellanby Hall of University College Ibadan in April 1960, he performed his latest satire, The Trials of Brother Jero. A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria's political classes, won a competition that year as the official opposition to Nigeria's Independence Day. It premiered in Lagos on October 1st. 1960 as Nigeria commemorated its independence. The play mocks the fledgling nation by implying that the presenter is no longer a golden age than has been imagined. Soyinka established the "Nineteen-Sixty Masks," an amateur acting group to which he devoted a long time over the next few years.

Soyinka wrote the first full-length play to be broadcast on Nigerian television. The play, titled My Father's Burden and directed by Segun Olusola, premiered on Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on August 6, 1960. Soyinka's "Emergency" in Nigeria's Western Region was increasingly occupied and ruled by the federal government, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the government. The political upheaval that followed post-colonial independence culminated in a military coup and civil war (1967-1970).

Soyinka acquired a Land Rover and began travelling around the country as a researcher with the University College's Department of English Language, which is located in Ibadan. He criticized Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black African past that ignores modernization's potential benefits. "A tiger doesn't announce his tigritude, he pounces," he is often quoted as saying. In fact, Soyinka wrote in a 1960 essay for the Horn: "The duiker will not paint 'duiker' on his stunning back to announce his duikeritude," he said. "The elephant tracks no tethering-rope, and the king is yet to be crowned who will peg an elephant," he says in Death and the King's Horsemen.

Soyinka's essay "Towards a True Theater" was released in December 1962. Obafemi Awolowo University in If began teaching with the Department of English Language. He spoke to "négrophiles" in the current affairs and denied government censorship on several occasions. Culture in Transition, his first full-length film, was released at the end of 1963. André Deutsch's "complex but also vividly documentary book The Interpreters," a 1965 novel by André Deutsch, was published in London.

Soyinka founded the Drama Association of Nigeria in December, joined by scientists and actors of theatre. In 1964, he resigned from his university job as a result of the government's imposed pro-government behavior. He was arrested for the first time in 1965, after being charged with holding a radio station at gunpoint (as explained in his 2006 book You Must Set Forth at Dawn) and transferring the tape of a recorded speech by the premier of Western Nigeria with a separate tape containing allegations of election abuse. As a result of writers' international community outrage, Soyinka was released after a few months of confinement. He wrote two more dramatic pieces this year: Before the Blackout and the comedy Kongi's Harvest, he wrote two more. In addition, he wrote The Detainee, a radio play for the BBC in London. The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Arts Festival, which opened on September 14th, 1965 at the Theatre Royal. He was promoted to headmaster and senior lecturer in the Department of English Language at University of Lagos at the end of the year.

At that time, Soyinka's political speeches sluggishly condemned the cult of personality and government corruption in African dictatorships. His play Kongi's Harvest was revived at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1966. The Road has been honoured with the Grand Prix. Jero's play The Trials of Brother Jero premiered at the Hampstead Theatre Club in London in June 1965, and The Lion and the Jewel appeared at the Royal Court Theatre in December 1966.

Soyinka became more politically active after being elected Chair of Drama at the University of Ibadan. He met with military governor Chukwu Ojukwu in Enugu, Southeastern Africa, on August 1967, hoping to avoid the Nigerian civil war. As a result, he had to go into hiding.

When civil war erupted between Nigeria and the Biafrans, he was detained for 22 months. Despite denying paper, pen, and paper, he nevertheless wrote a substantial number of poems and notes attacking the Nigerian government while in jail.

Despite his detention, his play The Lion and The Jewel was produced in Accra, Ghana, in September 1967. The Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were staged in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York City in November of that year. Soyinka also published Idanre and Other Poems, a series of his poetry inspired by his visit to the Yorùbá deity Ogun's shrine, who cites him as his "companion" deity, kindred spirit, and protector.

The Negro Ensemble Company in New York made Kongi's Harvest in 1968. Soyinka translated from Yoruba's fantastical book The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga, though he was still prisoned.

Amnesty was declared in October 1969, when the civil war came to an end, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were released. Soyinka spent the first few months after his release in southern France, where he sought anonymity. He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of the Pentheus myth. Poems from Prison, a collection of poetry, was soon published in London. At the end of the year, he returned to his position as Chair of Drama at Ibadan.

He created Harvest, the play Kongi's Harvest in 1970, while simultaneously adapting it as a film of the same name. He directed Madmen and Specialists in June 1970, creating another play. He took a trip to the United States and the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, where his new play premiered, along with a group of 15 actors from the Ibadan University Theatre Art Company. They gained experience with live performances in another English-speaking region.

His poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published in 1971. Madmen and Specialists were born in Ibadan last year. In the making of his Murderous Angels, Soyinka traveled to Paris to lead Patrice Lumumba, the assassinated first Prime Minister of the Congo.

Soyinka resigned from his academic positions in Ibadan in April 1971 and began years of voluntary exile in Nigeria. Extracts from his well-known play The Dance of The Forests were performed in Paris in July.

Oxford University Press published Season of Anomy and his Collected Plays in 1972. That year, his illuminating autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection of prison notes, was also published. In 1973, Leeds University conferred an Honoris Causa doctorate. The National Theatre, London, premiered The Bacchae of Euripides in the same year, and Camwood's Metamorphosis appeared in the Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were both first published. Soyinka spent time on scientific research from 1973 to 1975. He spent a year as a visiting scholar at Churchill College, Cambridge University, 1973-1974, wrote Death and the King's Horseman, which had its first reading at Churchill College (which Dapo Ladimeji and Skip Gates attended), and gave a series of lectures at a number of European universities.

Oxford University Press first published his Collected Plays, Volume II in 1974. Soyinka was appointed editor of Transition, a newspaper headquartered in Accra, Ghana, where he remained for some time. He used his columns in Transition to criticize the "negrophiles" (for example, his book "Neo-Transition: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes (for example, his article "Integrity: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition). In Uganda, he protested against the military junta of Idi Amin. Soyinka returned to his homeland and resuming his position as Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Ife following the political transition and the destabilization of Gowon's military regime in 1975.

He published his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman in 1976, as well as a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature, and the African World. Soyinka explores the genesis of mysticism in African theatre, drawing on examples from both European and African literature to compare and contrast the cultures in these essays. He gave a series of guest lectures at the University of Ghana's Institute of African Studies in Legon. The French version of The Dance of The Forests appeared in Dakar in October, while in Ife, his King's Horseman performed.

Opera Wnysi, Bertolt Brecht's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, was staged in Ibadan in 1977. He produced and appeared in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's drama The Biko Inquest, a series based on Steve Biko's life and the rights campaigner who was shot to death by apartheid police forces in 1979. Soyinka published his autobiographical work Aké: The Years of Childhood in 1981, which was named first in the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1983.

The Guerrilla Unit, Soyinka's second theatrical group, was formed. Its intention was to work with local communities in identifying their problems and expressing some of their grievances in vivid sketches. Requiem for a Futurologist, a play by James Dobie in 1983, was the first performance at the University of Ife. The Unlimited Liability Company, one of Soyinka's musical ventures, released I Love My Country, a long-playing album on which many well-known Nigerian musicians performed songs composed by Soyinka. In 1984, he directed the film Blues for a Protest, which was screened at the University of Ife. The A Play of Giants was produced the same year as his predecessor.

Soyinka was more politically active in the years 1975-84. He was in charge of the administration of the University of Ife, responsible for the security of public roads. He sluggishly voted President Shehu Shagari's government. Soyinka was often at odds with the military when he was replaced by army general Muhammadu Buhari. A Nigerian court barred his 1972 book The Man Died: Prison Notes. Rex Collings published his play Requiem for a Futurologist in 1985.

In 1986, Soyinka was given the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming Africa's first laureate. He was described as "who from a broader cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the dramatic of existence." According to Reed Way Dasenbrock, Soyinka's Nobel Prize in Literature is "probably to be highly deserved and highly deserved." "It's the first Nobel Prize to an African writer or any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the former British Empire's former colonies" is also noted by the author. Nelson Mandela's Nobel Prize-winning address, "This Past Must Address Its Present," was dedicated to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's address was a vocal condemnation of apartheid and racial segregation by the National South African government. He received the Agip Prize for Literature in 1986.

Mandela's Earth and Other Poems were published in 1988, while in Nigeria another collection of essays, titled Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture, appeared. Soyinka took up the position of Professor of African Studies and Theatre at Cornell University this year. In 1989, A Voyage Around Essay, inspired by his father's intellectual circle, appeared. The BBC African Service broadcast his radio play A Scourge of Hyacinths in July 1991, and his play From Zia with Love in Siena (Italy) received its premiere in 1992. Soyinka was named an honorary doctorate from Harvard University in 1993. Another part of his autobiography appeared in the following years: Ibadan, 1946-1965). The Beatification of Area Boy, his play, was released the following year. He was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Africa culture, human rights, freedom of expression, and interfacing in October 1994.

Soyinka moved from Nigeria through Benin and then to the United States in November 1994. The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis was published in 1996. He was charged with treason by the government of General Sani Abacha in 1997. The International Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in 1993 to provide help for writers who were chastised by persecution. Soyinka was the company's second president from 1997 to 2000. Soyinka's new collection of poems titled Outsiders was published in 1999. On the same year, BBC Radio 3 broadcast Document of Identity, a lightly-fictionalized tale about his daughter's family's struggle during a stopover in the United Kingdom after she left Nigeria for the United States in 1996; her son, Oseoba Airewele, was born in Luton and became a stateless individual.

King Baabu, Soyinka's political satire on African imperialism, premiered in Lagos in 2001. Methuen released Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known in 2002. Random House published You Must Set Forth at Dawn, his memoir, in April 2006. He had postponed his keynote address in 2006 for the annual S.E.A. Write an article about The success of the Thai military coup against the government was praised at a ceremony in Bangkok.

Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections two weeks earlier, despite widespread fraud and violence. Soyinka challenged the British government's social logic in encouraging every faith to openly profess their faith, arguing that religious fundamentalists were exploiting it, effectively transforming England into a cesspit for extremism. He supported the freedom of worship, but he cautioned against the danger of allowing faiths to preach apocalyptic violence.

Soyinka spoke of Chibok with Love" at the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, hosted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the British Humanist Union. The Congress theme was freedom of thought and expression: forging a 21st Century Enlightenment. He was named winner of the 2014 International Humanist Award. He served as a scholar-in-residence at the Institute of African American Affairs of New York University.

Soyinka has sluggishly condemned Fulani herdsmen to graze their cattle on open land in southern, Christian-dominated Nigeria, and believes these herdsmen should be declared terrorists to prevent the restriction of movement.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first book in nearly 50 years, was released in September 2021 as "a brutally satirical glimpse at Nigeria's rule and graft in the form of a whodunnit involving three university friends." Ben Okri, author of The Guardian, said "It is Soyinka's best book, his retaliation against the country's ruling class's insanities, and one of the country's most surprising chronicles of the 21st century." It should be well-read."

The film version of Death And The King's Horseman, co-produced by Netflix and Ebonylife TV in September 2022, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It's Soyinka's first film to be turned into a film and the first Yoruba-language film to premiere at TIFF.

Soyinka has been married three times and divorced twice. He has eight children from three previous marriages as well as two other daughters. Barbara Dixon, the late British writer, died in 1958 in Leeds, whom he met at the University of Leeds in the 1950s. Barbara was the mother of his first son, Olaokun. Morenike is the son of the narrator of Morenike. Olaide Idowu, a Nigerian librarian, married his second daughter, Moremi, Iyetade (deceased), Peyibomi, and his second son, Ilemakin, in 1963. Amani, Soyinka's youngest daughter, is the youngest in the family. In 1989, Soyinka married Folake Doherty. They have three sons, Tunlewa, Bojode, and Eniara.

In 2014, he revealed his fight against prostate cancer.

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