Wole Soyinka

"Soyinka" redirects here. For the surname, see Soyinka (surname).

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka Hon. FRSL (Yoruba: Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (pronounced [wɔlé ʃójĩnká]), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for "in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence",^[2] the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.^[3][a]

Wole Soyinka Hon. FRSL
Soyinka in 2018
Born	Akínwándé Olúwolé Babátúndé Sóyíinká^[1] (1934-07-13) 13 July 1934 (age 89) Abeokuta, Southern Region, British Nigeria (now in Ogun State, Nigeria)
Occupation	Author poet playwright
Alma mater	Government College, Ibadan Abeokuta Grammar School University College, Ibadan University of Leeds
Period	1957–present
Genre	Drama novel poetry
Subject	Comparative literature
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature 1990 Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award 2009 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement 2012 Europe Theatre Prize - Special Prize 2017
Spouse	Barbara Dixon ​ ​ (m. 1958, divorced)​ Olaide Idowu ​ ​ (m. 1963, divorced)​ Folake Doherty ​ (m. 1989)​
Children	10, including Olaokun
Relatives	Ransome-Kuti family

Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta.^[4] In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan,^[5] and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England.^[6] After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections.^[7][8] In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.^[9]

Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.^[10][11] Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".^[8] During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98),^[12] Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia".^[8] With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.

In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ifẹ̀.^[13] With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus.^[9] While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991^[14][15] and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.^[9][16] He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale,^[17][18] and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.^[19]

In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category,^[20][21] awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".^[22]

Life and work

A descendant of the rulers of Isara, Soyinka was born the second of his parents' seven children, in the city of Abẹokuta, Ogun State, in Nigeria, at that time a British dominion. His siblings were Atinuke "Tinu" Aina Soyinka, Femi Soyinka, Yeside Soyinka, Omofolabo "Folabo" Ajayi-Soyinka and Kayode Soyinka. His younger sister Folashade Soyinka died on her first birthday. His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. or "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta. Having solid family connections, the elder Soyinka was a cousin of the Odemo, or King, of Isara-Remo Samuel Akinsanya, a founding father of Nigeria. Soyinka's mother, Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he dubbed the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop in the nearby market. She was a political activist within the women's movement in the local community. She was also Anglican. As much of the community followed indigenous Yorùbá religious tradition, Soyinka grew up in a religious atmosphere of syncretism, with influences from both cultures. He was raised in a religious family, attending church services and singing in the choir from an early age; however, Soyinka himself became an atheist later in life.^[23][24] His father's position enabled him to get electricity and radio at home. He writes extensively about his childhood in his memoir Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981).^[25]

 

Soyinka, at Festivaletteratura in Mantua, 7 September 2019, Teatro Bibiena.

His mother was one of the most prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family: she was the granddaughter of Rev. Canon J. J. Ransome-Kuti as the only daughter of his first daughter Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, and was therefore a niece to Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti, Oludotun Ransome-Kuti and niece in-law to Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Among Soyinka's first cousins once removed were the musician Fela Kuti, the human rights activist Beko Ransome-Kuti, politician Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.^[26] His second cousins include musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and dancer Yeni Kuti.^[27] His younger brother Femi Soyinka became a medical doctor and a university professor.

In 1940, after attending St. Peter's Primary School in Abeokuta, Soyinka went to Abeokuta Grammar School, where he won several prizes for literary composition.^[28] In 1946 he was accepted by Government College in Ibadan, at that time one of Nigeria's elite secondary schools.^[28] After finishing his course at Government College in 1952, he began studies at University College Ibadan (1952–54), affiliated with the University of London.^[29] He studied English literature, Greek, and Western history. Among his lecturers was Molly Mahood, a British literary scholar.^[30] In the year 1953–54, his second and last at University College, Soyinka began work on Keffi's Birthday Treat, a short radio play for Nigerian Broadcasting Service that was broadcast in July 1954.^[31] While at university, Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student organisation, the first confraternity in Nigeria.^[32]

Later in 1954, Soyinka relocated to England, where he continued his studies in English literature, under the supervision of his mentor Wilson Knight at the University of Leeds (1954–57).^[33] He met numerous young, gifted British writers. Before defending his B.A. degree, Soyinka began publishing and working as editor for a satirical magazine called The Eagle; he wrote a column on academic life, in which he often criticised his university peers.^[34]

Early career

After graduating with an upper second-class degree, Soyinka remained in Leeds and began working on an MA.^[35] He intended to write new works combining European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage. His first major play, The Swamp Dwellers (1958), was followed a year later by The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy that attracted interest from several members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka moved to London, where he worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan. They dealt with the uneasy relationship between progress and tradition in Nigeria.^[36]

In 1957, his play The Invention was the first of his works to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre.^[37] At that time his only published works were poems such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which were published in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus.^[38] This was founded in 1957 by the German scholar Ulli Beier, who had been teaching at the University of Ibadan since 1950.^[39]

Soyinka received a Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College in Ibadan, his alma mater, for research on African theatre, and he returned to Nigeria. After its fifth issue (November 1959), Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn to become coeditor for the literary periodical Black Orpheus (its name derived from a 1948 essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a preface to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor).^[40] He produced his new satire, The Trials of Brother Jero in the dining-hall at Mellanby Hall of University College Ibadan, in April 1960.^[41] That year, his work A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that year as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day. On 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. The play satirizes the fledgling nation by showing that the present is no more a golden age than was the past. Also in 1960, Soyinka established the "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", an amateur acting ensemble to which he devoted considerable time over the next few years.^[42]

Soyinka wrote the first full-length play produced on Nigerian television. Entitled My Father's Burden and directed by Segun Olusola, the play was featured on the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on 6 August 1960.^[43][44] Soyinka published works satirising the "Emergency" in the Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the federal government. The political tensions arising from recent post-colonial independence eventually led to a military coup and civil war (1967–70).^[23]

With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka bought a Land Rover, and he began travelling throughout the country as a researcher with the Department of English Language of the University College in Ibadan. In an essay of the time, he criticised Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernisation. He is often quoted as having said, "A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces." But in fact, Soyinka wrote in a 1960 essay for the Horn: "the duiker will not paint 'duiker' on his beautiful back to proclaim his duikeritude; you'll know him by his elegant leap."^[45][46] In Death and the King's Horsemen he states: "The elephant trails no tethering-rope; that king is not yet crowned who will peg an elephant."^[47]

In December 1962, Soyinka's essay "Towards a True Theater" was published. He began teaching with the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ. He discussed current affairs with "négrophiles", and on several occasions openly condemned government censorship. At the end of 1963, his first feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. In 1965, his book The Interpreters, "a complex but also vividly documentary novel",^[48] was published in London by André Deutsch.^[49]

That December, together with scientists and men of theatre, Soyinka founded the Drama Association of Nigeria. In 1964 he also resigned his university post, as a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the authorities. A few months later, in 1965, he was arrested for the first time, charged with holding up a radio station at gunpoint (as described in his 2006 memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn)^[50] and replacing the tape of a recorded speech by the premier of Western Nigeria with a different tape containing accusations of election malpractice. Soyinka was released after a few months of confinement, as a result of protests by the international community of writers. This same year he wrote two more dramatic pieces: Before the Blackout and the comedy Kongi's Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio play for the BBC in London. His play The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Arts Festival,^[51] opening on 14 September 1965, at the Theatre Royal.^[52] At the end of the year, he was promoted to headmaster and senior lecturer in the Department of English Language at University of Lagos.^[53]

Soyinka's political speeches at that time criticised the cult of personality and government corruption in African dictatorships. In April 1966, his play Kongi's Harvest was produced in revival at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.^[54] The Road was awarded the Grand Prix. In June 1965, his play The Trials of Brother Jero was produced at the Hampstead Theatre Club in London, and in December 1966 The Lion and the Jewel was staged at the Royal Court Theatre.^[55][56]

Civil war and imprisonment

After becoming Chair of Drama at the University of Ibadan, Soyinka became more politically active. Following the military coup of January 1966, he secretly and unofficially met with the military governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in the Southeastern town of Enugu (August 1967), to try to avert the Nigerian civil war.^[57] As a result, he had to go into hiding.

He was imprisoned for 22 months^[58] as civil war ensued between the Federal government of Nigeria and the Biafrans. Though refused materials such as books, pens, and paper, he still wrote a significant body of poems and notes criticising the Nigerian government while in prison.^[59]

Despite his imprisonment, his play The Lion and The Jewel was produced in Accra, Ghana, in September 1967. In November that year, The Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were produced in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York City. Soyinka also published a collection of his poetry, Idanre and Other Poems, which was inspired by his visit to the sanctuary of the Yorùbá deity Ogun, whom he regards as his "companion" deity, kindred spirit, and protector.^[59]

In 1968, the Negro Ensemble Company in New York produced Kongi's Harvest.^[60] While still imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Yoruba a fantastical novel by his compatriot D. O. Fagunwa, entitled The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga.

Release and literary production

In October 1969, when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed.^[42] For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend's farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of the Pentheus myth.^[61] He soon published in London a book of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the end of the year, he returned to his office as Chair of Drama at Ibadan.

In 1970, he produced the play Kongi's Harvest, while simultaneously adapting it as a film of the same title. In June 1970, he finished another play, called Madmen and Specialists.^[62] Together with the group of 15 actors of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the United States, to the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, where his latest play premiered. It gave them all experience with theatrical production in another English-speaking country.

In 1971, his poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published. Madmen and Specialists was produced in Ibadan that year.^[63] Soyinka travelled to Paris to take the lead role as Patrice Lumumba, the murdered first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, in the production of Murderous Angels, Conor Cruise O'Brien's play about the Congo Crisis.^[64]

In April 1971, concerned about the political situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began years of voluntary exile.^[65] In July in Paris, excerpts from his well-known play The Dance of The Forests were performed.^[66]

In 1972, his novel Season of Anomy and his Collected Plays were both published by Oxford University Press. His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection of notes from prison, was also published that year.^[67] He was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds in 1973.^[68] In the same year the National Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the play The Bacchae of Euripides,^[61] and his plays Camwood on the Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were also first published. From 1973 to 1975, Soyinka spent time on scientific studies.^{[clarification needed]} He spent a year as a visiting fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge University^{[clarification needed][69]} 1973–74 and 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.

In 1974, his 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 of Accra, where he moved for some time.^[65] He used his columns in Transition to criticise the "negrophiles" (for instance, his article "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes. He protested 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, Soyinka returned to his homeland and resumed his position as Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Ife.^[65]

In 1976, he published his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman, as well as a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World.^[70] In these, Soyinka explores the genesis of mysticism in African theatre and, using examples from both European and African literature, compares and contrasts the cultures. He delivered a series of guest lectures at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in Legon. In October, the French version of The Dance of The Forests was performed in Dakar, while in Ife, his play Death and The King's Horseman premièred.

In 1977, Opera Wọnyọsi, his adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, was staged in Ibadan. In 1979 he both directed and acted in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's drama The Biko Inquest, a work based on the life of Steve Biko, a South African student and human rights activist who was beaten to death by apartheid police forces.^[14] In 1981 Soyinka published his autobiographical work Aké: The Years of Childhood, which won a 1983 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.^[71]

Soyinka founded another theatrical group called the Guerrilla Unit. Its goal was to work with local communities in analysing their problems and to express some of their grievances in dramatic sketches. In 1983 his play Requiem for a Futurologist had its first performance at the University of Ife. In July, one of his musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record entitled I Love My Country, on which several prominent Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka. In 1984, he directed the film Blues for a Prodigal, which was screened at the University of Ife.^[72] His A Play of Giants was produced the same year.

During the years 1975–84, Soyinka was more politically active. At the University of Ife, his administrative duties included the security of public roads. He criticized the corruption in the government of the democratically elected President Shehu Shagari. When he was replaced by the army general Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with the military. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned his 1972 book The Man Died: Prison Notes.^[73] In 1985, his play Requiem for a Futurologist was published in London by Rex Collings.^[74]

Since 1986

 

Soyinka in 2015.

Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986,^[75][55] becoming the first African laureate. He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved". He also notes that "it is the first Nobel Prize awarded to an African writer or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire."^[76] His Nobel acceptance speech, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was devoted to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the National South African government. In 1986, he received the Agip Prize for Literature.

In 1988, his 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. In the same year, Soyinka accepted the position of Professor of African Studies and Theatre at Cornell University.^[77] In 1989, a third novel, inspired by his father's intellectual circle, Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay, appeared. In July 1991 the BBC African Service transmitted his radio play A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year (1992) in Siena (Italy), his play From Zia with Love had its premiere.^[78] Both works are very bitter political parodies, based on events that took place in Nigeria in the 1980s. In 1993 Soyinka was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. The next year another part of his autobiography appeared: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946–1965). The following year his play The Beatification of Area Boy was published. In October 1994, he was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.^[40]

In November 1994, Soyinka fled from Nigeria through the border with Benin and then to the United States.^[79] In 1996 his book The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis was first published. In 1997 he was charged with treason by the government of General Sani Abacha.^[80][81][82] The International Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in 1993 to provide support for writers victimized by persecution. Soyinka became the organization's second president from 1997 to 2000.^[83][84] In 1999 a new volume of poems by Soyinka, entitled Outsiders, was released. That same year, a BBC-commissioned play called Document of Identity aired on BBC Radio 3, telling the lightly-fictionalized story of the problems his daughter's family encountered during a stopover in Britain when they fled Nigeria for the US in 1996; her son, Oseoba Airewele was born in Luton and became a stateless person.^[8]

Soyinka's play King Baabu premièred in Lagos in 2001,^[85] a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship.^[85] In 2002, a collection of his poems entitled Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known was published by Methuen. In April 2006, his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn was 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.^[86]

In April 2007, Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread fraud and violence.^[87] In the wake of the attempting bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States by a Nigerian student who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka questioned the British government's social logic in allowing every religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting that it was being abused by religious fundamentalists, thereby turning England into, in his view, a cesspit for the breeding of extremism.^[88] He supported the freedom of worship but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence.^[89]

In August 2014, Soyinka delivered a recording of his speech "From Chibok with Love" to the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, hosted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the British Humanist Association.^[90] The Congress theme was Freedom of thought and expression: Forging a 21st Century Enlightenment. He was awarded the 2014 International Humanist Award.^[91][92] He served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs.^[16]

Soyinka opposes allowing Fulani herdsmen the ability to graze their cattle on open land in southern, Christian-dominated Nigeria and believes these herdsmen should be declared terrorists to enable the restriction of their movements.^[93]

In December 2020, Soyinka described 2020 as the most challenging year in the nation's history, saying: "With the turbulence that characterised year 2020, and as activities wind down, the mood has been repugnant and very negative. I don't want to sound pessimistic but this is one of the most pessimistic years I have known in this nation and it wasn't just because of COVID-19. Natural disasters had happened elsewhere, but how have you managed to take such in their strides?"^[94]

September 2021 saw the publication of Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first novel in almost 50 years, described in the Financial Times as "a brutally satirical look at power and corruption in Nigeria, told in the form of a whodunnit involving three university friends."^[95] Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Ben Okri said: "It is Soyinka's greatest novel, his revenge against the insanities of the nation's ruling class and one of the most shocking chronicles of an African nation in the 21st century. It ought to be widely read."^[96]

The film adaptation by Biyi Bandele of Soyinka's 1975 stage play Death and the King's Horseman, co-produced by Netflix and Ebonylife TV, titled Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman,^[97][98][99] premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2022. It is Soyinka's first work to be made into a feature film, and the first Yoruba-language film to premiere at TIFF.^[100]

Personal life

Soyinka has been married three times and divorced twice. He has eight children from his three marriages and two other daughters. His first marriage was in 1958 to the late British writer Barbara Dixon, whom he met at the University of Leeds in the 1950s. Barbara was the mother of his first son, Olaokun, and his daughter Morenike. His second marriage was in 1963 to Nigerian librarian Olaide Idowu,^[101] with whom he had three daughters – Moremi, Iyetade (1965–2013),^[102] Peyibomi – and a second son, Ilemakin. Soyinka's youngest daughter is Amani.^[103] Soyinka married Folake Doherty in 1989 and the couple have three sons: Tunlewa, Bojode and Eniara.^[8][104]

In 2014, Soyinka revealed his battle with prostate cancer.^[105]

Soyinka has commented on his close friendships with Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates Jr., saying: "Friendship, to me, is what saves one's sanity."^[106]

Religion

On Sunday, 20 November 2022; during a public presentation of his two-volume collection of essays, Soyinka said in relation to religion:

"Do I really need one (religion)? I have never felt I needed one. I am a mythologist. ... No, I don't worship any deity. But I consider deities as creatively real and therefore my companions in my journey in both the real world and the imaginative world."^[107]

Around July 2023, Soyinka came under severe criticism, after writing an open letter to the Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, over the cancellation of the Isese festival proposed by an Osun priestess, Omolara Olatunji, popularly known as Yeye Ajesikemi.^[108]

Legacy and honours

The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was founded in 1994 and "is dedicated to honouring one of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring literary icons: Professor Wole Soyinka".^[109] It is organised by the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which organisation Soyinka with six other students founded in 1952 at the then University College Ibadan.^[110]

In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built a writers' enclave in his honour. It is located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.^[111] The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing. In 2013, he visited the Benin Moat as the representative of UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project.^[112] He is currently the consultant for the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos State deeming him as the only person who could bring out the aims and objectives of the Festival to the people.^[113] He was appointed a patron of Humanists UK in 2020.^[114]

In 2014, the collection Crucible of the Ages: Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochwuku Promise, was published by Bookcraft in Nigeria and Ayebia Clarke Publishing in the UK, with tributes and contributions from Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Margaret Busby, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ali Mazrui, Sefi Atta, and others.^[115][116]

In 2018, Henry Louis Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerian filmmaker and writer Onyeka Nwelue visited him in Harvard and was making a documentary film on Wole Soyinka.^[117] As part of efforts to mark his 84th birthday, a collection of poems titled 84 Delicious Bottles of Wine was published for Wole Soyinka, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa. Among the notable contributors was Adamu Usman Garko, award-winning teenage essayist, poet and writer.^[118]

• 1973: Honorary D.Litt., University of Leeds^[119]
• 1973–74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge
• 1983: Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (Hon. FRSL)^[120]
• 1983: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States
• 1986: Nobel Prize for Literature
• 1986: Agip Prize for Literature
• 1986: Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR), national honour of Nigeria
• 1990: Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature
• 1993: Honorary doctorate, Harvard University
• 2002: Honorary fellowship, SOAS University of London^[121]
• 2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University^[122]
• 2005: Enstooled as the Akinlatun of Egbaland, a Nigerian chief, by the Oba Alake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland. Soyinka became a tribal aristocrat by way of this, one vested with the right to use the Yoruba title Oloye as a pre-nominal honorific.^[123]
• 2009: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at an awards ceremony at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa^[124][125]
• 2013: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement, United States^[126]
• 2014: International Humanist Award^[91][92]
• 2017: Joins the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Humanities^[127]
• 2017: "Special Prize" of the Europe Theatre Prize^[22]
• 2018: University of Ibadan's arts theatre renamed as Wole Soyinka Theatre.^[128]
• 2018: Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).^[129]
• 2022: Honorary Degree from Cambridge University, bestowed upon people who have made outstanding achievements in their respective fields.^[130]

Europe Theatre Prize

In 2017, he received the Special Prize of the Europe Theatre Prize, in Rome.^[131] The Prize organization stated:

A Special Prize is awarded to Wole Soyinka, writer, playwright and poet, Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, who with his work has been able to create an ideal bridge between Europe and Africa (...) With his art and his commitment, Wole Soyinka has contributed to a renewal of African cultural life, participating actively in the dialogue between Africa and Europe, touching on more and more urgent political themes and bringing, in English, richness and beauty to literature, theatre and action in Europe and the four corners of the world.^[132]

Works

Plays

• Keffi's Birthday Treat (1954)
• The Invention (1957)
• The Swamp Dwellers (1958)
• A Quality of Violence (1959)^[133]
• The Lion and the Jewel (1959)
• The Trials of Brother Jero (1960)
• A Dance of the Forests (1960)
• My Father's Burden (1960)
• The Strong Breed (1964)
• Before the Blackout (1964)
• Kongi's Harvest (1964)
• The Road (1965)
• Madmen and Specialists (1970)
• The Bacchae of Euripides (1973)
• Camwood on the Leaves (1973)
• Jero's Metamorphosis (1973)
• Death and the King's Horseman (1975)
• Opera Wonyosi (1977)
• Requiem for a Futurologist (1983)
• A Play of Giants (1984)
• Childe Internationale (1987)^[134][135]
• From Zia with Love (1992)
• The Detainee (radio play)
• A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play)
• The Beatification of Area Boy (1996)
• Document of Identity (radio play, 1999)
• King Baabu (2001)
• Etiki Revu Wetin
• Alapata Apata (2011)
• "Thus Spake Orunmila" (in Sixty-Six Books (2011)^[136]

Novels

• The Interpreters (1965)
• Season of Anomy (1973)
• Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (Bookcraft, Nigeria; Bloomsbury, UK; Pantheon, US, 2021)^[137][138]

Short stories

• A Tale of Two (1958)
• Egbe's Sworn Enemy (1960)
• Madame Etienne's Establishment (1960)

Memoirs

• The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972)
• Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981)
• Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a memoir 1945–1965 (1989)
• Ìsarà: A Voyage around Essay (1989)
• You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006)

Poetry collections

• Telephone Conversation (1963) (appeared in Modern Poetry in Africa)
• Idanre and other poems (1967)
• A Big Airplane Crashed into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison) (1969)
• A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971)
• Ogun Abibiman (1976)
• Mandela's Earth and other poems (1988)
• Early Poems (1997)
• Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002)

Essays

• "Towards a True Theater" (1962)
• Culture in Transition (1963)
• Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition
• A Voice That Would Not Be Silenced
• Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture (1988)
• From Drama and the African World View (1976)
• Myth, Literature, and the African World (1976)^[139]
• The Blackman and the Veil (1990)^[140]
• The Credo of Being and Nothingness (1991)
• The Burden of Memory – The Muse of Forgiveness (1999)
• A Climate of Fear (the BBC Reith Lectures 2004, audio and transcripts)
• New Imperialism (2009)^[141]
• Of Africa (2012)^[142][143]
• Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions (2019)

Films

• Kongi's Harvest
• Culture in Transition
• Blues for a Prodigal

Translations

• The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga (1968; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀)
• In the Forest of Olodumare (2010; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Igbo Olodumare)

See also

•  Literature portal
•  Poetry portal
•  Africa portal
•  Nigeria portal

• Nigerian literature
• List of 20th-century writers
• List of African writers
• Black Nobel Prize laureates
• Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
• List of Nigerian writers

Notes

1. The African-born writers Albert Camus and Claude Simon, both of whom were of French ancestry, had previously won the prize.

References

1. Wasson, Tyler; Gert H. Brieger (1 January 1987). Nobel Prize Winners: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, Volume 1. The University of Michigan, US. p. 993. ISBN 9780824207564. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
2. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 | Wole Soyinka". NobelPrize.org. The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
3. Ahmed, Abiy (9 December 2019). "Africa's Nobel Prize winners: A list". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
4. Onuzo, Chibundu (25 September 2021). "Interview | Wole Soyinka: 'This book is my gift to Nigeria'". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
5. "Wole Soyinka – Biographical". NobelPrize.org. The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
6. Soyinka, Wole (2000) [1981]. Aké: The Years of Childhood. Nigeria: Methuen. p. 1. ISBN 9780413751904. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
7. de Vries, Hubert (31 March 2009). "NIGERIA | Western Regiion". www.hubert-herald.nl. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
8. Jaggi, Maya (2 November 2002). "Ousting monsters". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
9. de Vroom, Theresia (Spring 2008), "The Many Dimensions of Wole Soyinka", Vistas, Loyola Marymount University. 5 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
10. "Nigeria in crisis: Memo to Prof Wole Soyinka". Tribune Online. 17 December 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
11. Soyinka, Wole (2017). "The Critic and Society: Barthes, Leftocracy, and Other Mythologies". African American Review. 50 (4): 635–648. doi:10.1353/afa.2017.0113. ISSN 1945-6182. S2CID 165943714.
12. "Sani Abacha | Nigerian military leader". www.britannica.com. Britannica. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
13. . www.oauife.edu.ng. Archived from the original on 15 December 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
14. Gibbs, James. "Soyinka, Wole 1934–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 27 September 2021. (Updated by Tanure Ojaide.)
15. (PDF). Cornell Chronicle. Archived from the original (pdf) on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
16. "Nobel Laureate Soyinka at NYU for Events in October", News Release, NYU, 16 September 2016.
17. Smith, Malinda S. "Profile of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka" (PDF). The Africa Society, The University of Alberta. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
18. Posey, Jacquie (18 November 2004). . The University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 13 January 2014. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
19. "Soyinka on Stage | Nobel laureate works with student production of his play". Duke Magazine. No. January–February 2011. 31 January 2011. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
20. Ajibade, Kunle (12 December 2017). "Wole Soyinka Wins The Europe Theatre Prize". PM NEWS Nigeria. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
21. "Soyinka Wins 2017 Europe Theatre Prize". Concise News. 15 December 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
22. "Wole Soyinka to receive Europe Theatre Prize 2017". James Murua's Literature Blog. 14 December 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
23. "Wole Soyinka: The Literary Lion | Biography and Interview". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. 3 July 2009.
24. Soyinka, Wole (2007). Climate of Fear: The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World. Random House LLC. p. 119. ISBN 9780307430823. I already had certain agnostic tendencies—which would later develop into outright atheistic convictions— so it was not that I believed in any kind of divine protection.
25. Soyinka, Wole (1981). Ake: The Years of Childhood. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 9780679725404. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
26. Jaggi, Maya (28 May 2007). "The voice of conscience". The Guardian.
27. Okunola, Akindare (24 September 2021). "How Femi and Made Kuti Are Keeping the Activist Heritage of Their Family Alive". Global Citizen. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
28. Ezebuiro, Peace (10 November 2015). "Wole Soyinka – Biography, Wife, Children, Family, Quick Facts". Answers Africa. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
29. "History". University of Ibadan. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
30. Innes, Lyn (26 March 2017). "Molly Mahood obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 March 2017.
31. Gibbs, James, ed. (1980). Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka. Three Continents Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780914478492.
32. "Throwback Photos: Wole Soyinka And His Friends That Founded The Pyrates Confraternity". Jojo Naija. 5 August 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
33. "Wole Soyinka | Biography, Plays, Books, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
34. Lindfors, Bernth (September 1974). "Popular Literature for an African Elite". The Journal of Modern African Studies. Cambridge University Press. 12 (3): 471–486. doi:10.1017/S0022278X00009745. JSTOR 159945. S2CID 154353869.
35. Gibbs, James (1986). Wole Soyinka. Basingstoke: Macmillan. p. 3. ISBN 9780333305287.
36. "Wole Soyinka", The New York Times, 22 July 2009.
37. "Wole Soyinka". African Biography. Detroit, MI: Gale (published 2 December 2006). 1999. ISBN 978-0-7876-2823-9.
38. "Wole Soyinka", Book Rags (n.d.)
39. "Ulli Beier" (obituary), The Telegraph, 12 May 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
40. Benson, Peter (1986). Black Orpheus, Transition, and Modern Cultural Awakening in Africa. University of California Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780520054189.
41. Jacobs, Alan. "The Trials Of Brother Jero". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
42. PEN America (16 April 2012). "Case Histories: Wole Soyinka". PEN America. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
43. Uzoatu, Uzor Maxim (5 October 2013). "The Essential Soyinka Timeline". Premium Times. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
44. . Abiyamo. 13 July 2013. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
45. Maduakor, Obiajuru (1986). "Soyinka as a Literary Critic". Research in African Literatures. 17 (1): 1–38. JSTOR 3819421.
46. "Tigritude". This Analog Life. 5 August 2013. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
47. Amayi, Zakayo (22 June 2013). "Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka's grumpy battles to defend literary legacy". Retrieved 28 September 2021.
48. Killam, Douglas, and Ruth Rowe, eds (2000), The Companion to African Literature, Oxford: James Currey/Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 275.
49. The interpreters. OCLC 1842667. Retrieved 28 September 2021. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
50. Busby, Margaret (26 May 2007), "Marvels of the holy hour" (review of You Must Set Forth at Dawn), The Guardian.
51. "Commonwealth Arts Festival", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre.
52. "Road, The", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
53. Ezugwu, Obinna (19 July 2021). "Salute To Kongi At 87 - Business Hallmark". hallmarknews.com. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
54. Murphy, David (Autumn 2018), "Performing Global African Culture and Citizenship: Major Pan-African Cultural Festivals from Dakar 1966 to FESTAC 1977", Tate Papers, No. 30.
55. "Wole Soyinka: A Chronology". African Postcolonial Literature in English. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
56. Banham, Martin. "Critical Responses: Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel. Royal Court Theatre, London, December 1966". Black Plays Archive. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
57. "Professor WOLE SOYINKA Full Biography, Life And News - How Nigeria News". howng.com. 29 September 2015. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
58. "Wole Soyinka: Nigeria's Nobel Laureate", African Voices, CNN, 27 July 2009.
59. Soyinka, Wole (2006), You Must Set Forth at Dawn, p. 6.
60. "Theater: Kongi's Harvest". Time. 26 April 1968. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
61. Killam and Rowe (eds), The Companion to African Literature (2000), p. 276.
62. Ajeluorou, Anote (25 July 2015). "Periscoping A Senseless War In Madmen And Specialists". The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
63. Lee, Christopher J. (25 March 2020). "Reading Wole Soyinka's 'Madmen and Specialists' in a Time of Pandemic". Warscapes.
64. Jeyifo, Biodun (2004). "Chronology". Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics, and Postcolonialism. Cambridge University Press. p. xxvii. ISBN 9781139439084.
65. Adegbamigbe, Ademola (13 July 2019). "Soyinka at 85: 'Why I Detained Him for 2 Years During the Civil War' - Yakubu Gowon". The NEWS. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
66. Adenekan, Sulaiman (2016). "The Pride of Africa: Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka clocks 85 years serving humanity poetically". Trade Newswire. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
67. "Wole Soyinka | Biographical", The Nobel Prize, 1986.
68. "Honorary Degree", Leeds African Studies Bulletin 19 (November 1973), pp. 1–2. [Professor Soyinka receiving the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the Chancellor, HRH the Duchess of Kent, on Thursday 17 May 1973 – image from 'Nobel Prize for Leeds Graduate', The Reporter (the University of Leeds), 258, 24 October 1986.]
69. "Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka joins UJ as visiting professor". Vanguard News. 28 March 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
70. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
71. "Winners: 1983 Nonfiction – Ake". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
72. Gibbs, James (1985). "Wole Soyinka's film banned". Index on Censorship. 14 (3): 41. doi:10.1080/03064228508533902. S2CID 220929276 – via SAGE Journals.
73. Gibbs (1986). Wole Soyinka. Macmillan. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9781349182091.
74. Soyinka, Wole (1985). Requiem for a futurologist. London: Rex Collings. ISBN 978-0-86036-207-4.
75. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 | Wole Soyinka", Nobelprize.org, 23 August 2010.
76. Dasenbrock, Reed Way (January 1987). "Wole Soyinka's Nobel Prize". World Literature Today. 61 (1): 4–9. JSTOR 40142439.
77. Liukkonen, Petri. . Books and Writers. Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015.
78. Soyinka, Wole (1992). From Zia, with Love; And, A Scourge of Hyacinths. Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-0-413-67240-7.
79. French, Howard W. (13 March 1997). "Nigerian Nobel Winner Faces Treason Charges". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
80. French, Howard W. (13 March 1997). "Nigerian Nobel Winner Faces Treason Charges". The New York Times.
81. "Nigerian novelist charged with treason". The Washington Post. 13 March 1997.
82. Roberts, James (23 October 2011). "Nobel winner charged with treason". The Independent.
83. "International Parliament of Writers". Seven Stories Press. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
84. "Wole Soyinka, Writer 'Rights and Relativity: The Interplay of Cultures'". Avenali lecture; The University of California, Berkeley. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2013.
85. Eniwoke Ibagere, "Nigeria's Soyinka back on stage", BBC News, 6 August 2005.
86. S. P. Somtow, "Why artistic freedom matters" 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Nation, 16 November 2006.
87. Oke, Obinna (12 August 2017). "Opinion: Prof. Wole Soyinka is 'Dead'". GbaramatuVoice. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
88. "Wole Soyinka". Nigeria News. 26 February 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2023 – via PressReader.
89. Gardham, Duncan (1 February 2010). "Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says England is 'cesspit' of extremism". The Daily Telegraph.
90. lifeandtimesnews.com (30 June 2017). "Nigeria's Renowned Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka - LifeAndTimes News". Retrieved 23 May 2022.
91. "Wole Soyinka's International Humanist Award acceptance speech – full text". International Humanist and Ethical Union. 12 August 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
92. "Wole Soyinka wins International Humanist Award". British Humanist Association. 10 August 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
93. Lawaru (7 June 2018). "Fighting between Nigerian farmers and herders is getting worse". The Economist.
94. "No one's in charge of Nigeria — Soyinka". Vanguard News. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
95. Munshi, Neil (22 September 2021). "Wole Soyinka on Nigeria: 'It's like something has broken in society'". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022.
96. Okri, Ben (27 September 2021). "Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka review – a vast danse macabre". The Guardian.
97. Agency Report (12 June 2018). "Film adaptation of Wole Soyinka's 'Death and the King's Horseman' underway". Premium Times Nigeria. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
98. Bamidele, Michael (12 June 2020). "Netflix, Mo Abudu Partner For Adaptation of Soyinka and Shoneyin's Books". The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
99. Nwogu, Precious 'Mamazeus' (26 October 2021). "Biyi Bandele to direct Ebonylife & Netflix's 'Death and the King's Horseman'". Pulse Nigeria. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
100. Aromolaran, Michael (30 July 2022). "Netflix Releases Teaser for 'Elesin Oba: The King's Horseman'". The Culture Custodian (Est. 2014.). Retrieved 1 August 2022.
101. The Who's Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901–1995. Oryx Press. 1996. p. 89. ISBN 9780897748995. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
102. "Nobel Laureate Soyinka's Daughter Dies". Sahara Reporters. New York. 29 December 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
103. "Soyinka Family Announces Burial Rites For Iyetade Soyinka". Sahara Reporters. 3 January 2014. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
104. "Wole Soyinka". NNDB. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
105. Oyebade, Wole; Charles Coffie Gyamfi (25 November 2014). "Nigeria: My Battle With Prostate Cancer – Wole Soyinka". The Guardian. Lagos. Retrieved 4 April 2015 – via All Africa.
106. Manyika, Sarah Ladipo (13 February 2023). "'Friendship, to Me, Is What Saves One's Sanity': Wole Soyinka". Open Country Mag. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
107. Ugwu, Francis (21 November 2022). "I don't need religion - Wole Soyinka". Daily Post.
108. Ahmed, Buhari Olanrewaju (9 July 2023). "Kwara Born Islamic Scholar, Blasts Soyinka Over Comment On Emir Of Ilorin". Afrika Eyes. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
109. "Wole Soyinka Lecture Series". National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity). Retrieved 25 November 2014.
110. . www.nas-int.org. National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity). Archived from the original on 17 February 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
111. Okoh, Lize (4 June 2018). "A Tour of Wole Soyinka's Nigeria". Culture Trip. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
112. "Naija 7 wonders commends Wole Soyinka for Benin Moat visit", The Nation, 2 March 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
113. "Lagos Black Festival: From Imitation: Tune to Indigenous Innovative music" 1 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, This Day Live, 4 May 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
114. "Humanists UK welcomes new patron, Wole Soyinka". Humanists UK. 12 August 2020.
115. Assensoh, A. B., and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh (25 June 2014), "Celebrating Soyinka at 80", New African.
116. Akeh, Afam (22 July 2015), , Centre for African Poetry.
117. Adedun (18 August 2018). "ONYEKA NWELUE'S NEW FILM FEATURE 'WOLE SOYINKA: A GOD AND THE BIAFRANS' TO BE PREVIEWED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY JULY 13TH". Simple. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
118. "ADAMU USMAN GARKO". WRR PUBLISHERS LTD. 10 December 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
119. Honorary Degree, Leeds African Studies Bulletin 19 (November 1973), pp. 1–2.
120. "Wole Soyinka". The Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
121. . SOAS. Archived from the original on 1 May 2019. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
122. Quiñones, Eric (31 May 2005). "Princeton University – Princeton awards six honorary degrees". Princeton.edu. Retrieved 21 August 2010.
123. . Sunday Tribune. 27 November 2005. Archived from the original on 3 January 2006. Retrieved 13 December 2005.
124. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
125. "2009 Summit Photo". Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, Africa's first Nobel Laureate for Literature, addresses the Academy delegates.
126. "Winners | 2013 Lifetime Achievement | Wole Soyinka". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
127. "Nobel Laureate prize winner, Prof Wole Soyinka, joins UJ", University of Johannesburg, 28 March 2017.
128. "UI Renames Its Arts Theatre 'Wole Soyinka Theatre'". Sahara Reporters. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
129. Sowole, Adeniyi (26 November 2018). "Awards: FUNAAB My Last Bus Stop, Says Soyinka". Olajide Fabamise. Leadership. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
130. Edeme, Victoria (23 June 2022). "Soyinka, nine others receive Cambridge varsity honorary degrees". Punch Newspapers. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
131. "XVI EDIZIONE". Premio Europa per il Teatro (in Italian). Retrieved 12 January 2023.
132. "Catalogue XVI edition - Europe Theatre Prize" (PDF). 5 April 2018. p. 39.
133. . Writer's History. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
134. Offiong, Adie Vanessa (23 August 2015). . DailyTrust. Archived from the original on 27 March 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
135. Gibbs, James; Bernth Lindfors (1993). Research on Wole Soyinka (Comparative studies in African/Caribbean literature series). Africa World Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-865-4321-92.
136. "Sixty-Six Books, One Hundred Artists, One New Theatre", Bush Theatre, October 2011.
137. Flood, Alison (28 October 2020). "Wole Soyinka to publish first novel in almost 50 years". The Guardian. London.
138. Briefly reviewed in the 27 September 2021 issue of The New Yorker, p. 83.
139. Cassirer, Thomas; Wole Soyinka (1978). "Myth, Literature and the African World by Wole Soyinka. Review". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. Boston University African Studies Center. 11 (4): 755–757. doi:10.2307/217214. JSTOR 217214.
140. Soyinka, Wole (1993). The Blackman and the Veil: A Century on; And, Beyond the Berlin Wall: Lectures Delivered by Wole Soyinka on 31 August and 1 September 1990. SEDCO. ISBN 978-9964-72-121-3. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
141. . Mkuki na Nyota Publishers. 2009. ISBN 978-9987-08-055-7. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
142. Soyinka, Wole (November 2012). Of Africa. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300-14-046-0.
143. Hochschild, Adam (22 November 2012). "Assessing Africa – 'Of Africa,' by Wole Soyinka". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2014.

Further reading

• Afolayan, Kayode Niyi. "Religious metaphors and the crisis of faith in Wole Soyinka’s poetry." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 60, no. 2 (2023): 1-12.
• C. A. Carpenter (1981). "Studies of Wole Soyinka's Drama: An International Bibliography". Modern Drama 24(1), 96–101. doi:10.1353/mdr.1981.0042.
• James Gibbs (1980). Critical Perspective on Wole Soyinka (Critical Perspectives). Three Continents Press. ISBN 978-0-914478-49-2.
• James Gibbs (1986). Wole Soyinka. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333305287.
• Eldred Jones (1987). The Writing of Wole Soyinka. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-435080-21-1.
• M. Rajeshwar (1990). Novels of Wole Soyinka. Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division. ISBN 978-8-185218-21-2.
• Derek Wright (1996). Wole Soyinka: Life, Work, and Criticism. York Press. ISBN 978-1-896761-01-5.
• Gerd Meuer (2008). Journeys around and with Kongi - half a century on the road with Wole Soyinka: a pan-afropean or pan-eurafrican book. Reche. ISBN 978-3-929566-73-4.
• Bankole Olayebi (2004), WS: A Life in Full, Bookcraft; biography of Soyinka.
• Ilori, Oluwakemi Atanda (2016), The Theatre of Wole Soyinka: Inside the Liminal World of Myth, Ritual and Postcoloniality. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.
• Mpalive-Hangson Msiska (2007), Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka (Cross/Cultures 93). Amsterdam-New York, NY: Editions Rodopi B.V. ISBN 978-9042022584
• Yemi D. Ogunyemi (2009), The Literary/Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka (PublishAmerica). ISBN 1-60836-463-1
• Yemi D. Ogunyemi (2017), The Aesthetic and Moral Art of Wole Soyinka (Academica Press, London-Washington). ISBN 978-1-68053-034-6
• Ayo Osisanwo & Muideen Adekunle. "Expressions of Political Consciousness in Wole Soyinka’s Alapata Apata and Femi Osofisan's Morountodun: A Pragma-Stylistic Analysis". Ibadan Journal of English Studies 7 (2011): 521–542.

External links

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to Wole Soyinka.

• Wole Soyinka papers, 1966–1996. Houghton Library, Harvard University.
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Wole Soyinka on Nobelprize.org  
• "Wole Soyinka" Profile, Presidential Lectures, Stanford University
• Uchenna Izundu, "Inspiring Nigeria's political dawns", BBC, September 2007.
• Amy Goodman, "Legendary Nigerian Writer Wole Soyinka: Darfur Crisis 'A Blot on the Conscience of the World'", Democracy Now!, 18 April 2006.
• Amy Goodman, "Legendary Nigerian Writer Wole Soyinka on Oil in the Niger Delta, the Effect of Iraq on Africa and His New Memoir", Democracy Now!, 18/19 April 2006.
• Dave Gilson, "Wole Soyinka: Running to Stand Still", Mother Jones, July/August 2006.
• Paul Brians, "Study guide for The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero, and Madmen and Specialists", Washington State University.
• "The Climate of Fear", Soyinka's Reith Lectures, BBC, 2004.
• Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, "The Essential Soyinka", African Writing Online, No. 7.
• "Wole Soyinka – Ake: The Years of Childhood", World Book Club, BBC World Service, 29 May 2007.
• Martin Banham, "Wole Soyinka: an appreciation", Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 45 (November 1986), pp. 1–2.