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Wole Soyinka
Head and shoulders of an aged black man, with a full head of white hair. He has a medium-sized moustache.
Soyinka in 2018
Born
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka

(1934-07-13) 13 July 1934 (age 90)
Abeokuta, British Nigeria
Occupation(s)Novelist, playwright, poet

User:SafariScribe/List of Catholic Bishops in Nigeria Wole Soyinka (born Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka[1][a];13 July 1934[2]) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collection, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two translated works and many articles and short stories for many newspapers and periodicals. He is widely regarded as one of Africa's greatest writers and one of the world's most important dramatists. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence".

Born into an Anglican Yoruba family in Aké, Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education at Government College, Ibadan and proceeded to the University College Ibadan. During his education, he founded the Pyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at the University of Leeds. During that period, he was the editor of the university's magazine, The Eagle, before becoming a full-time author in the 1950s. At UK he started writing short stories and making records for the BBC lecture. He wrote many plays which were performed in radios and theatres in Nigeria and UK especially the Royal Court Theatre. In 1958 he married a British woman whom he had met in Leeds. In 1963, after the divorce of the first wife, he married a Nigerian librarian, and subsequently, Folake Doherty in 1989.

Many of Soyinka's novels and plays are set in Nigeria. He also wrote many satirical pieces, which he used to appeal to a wide public and sold in large numbers. He is also a poet; he did well in the writing poems and poetry collections. He achieved successes with his plays including The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Lion and the Jewel (1959), and The Invention, which was one his early plays to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka wrote many works including The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1973), Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, and Harmattan Haze on an African Spring. In July 2024, Bola Tinubu renamed the National Arts Theatre after Soyinka during his 90th birthday.

Early life and career

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Early life

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see caption
Skyline view of Abeokuta from Olumo Rock

Soyinka is the son of Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, an Anglican minister and headmaster[3][4] and Grace Soyinka (1908-1983), a shopkeeper and local activist, who was a daughter of an Anglican minister[3] and a member of the Ransome-Kuti family.[5] He was born on 13 July 1934 in Abeokuta, Nigeria,[1][3] He was raised as a Christian and was the second of seven children.[6] His great-grand father Josiah Ransome-Kuti (1855-1930) was a clergyman and gospel music composer and his childhood was influenced by Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti (1891–1955), Josiah’s third son and sister of his mother, Eniola, who he has cited as a major intellectual influence on him during his formative years.[7]

Soyinka was educated at St. Peters Primary School, Ake, from 1940-1946. His father was the headmaster.[8] Although he started his secondary education at Abeokuta Grammar School from 1946, he completed at Government College, Ibadan in 1951. He was admitted into the University College, Ibadan from 1952 to 1954.[3] Along his classmates Olumuyiwa Awẹ, Ralph Opara, Aig-Imoukhuede, and Pius Olegbe, he formed the Pyrate Confraternity in 1953, and moved to England to study at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire[9] from 1954 to 1957 under the supervision of G. Wilson Knight.[3][10] He graduated with a degree in drama in 1958.[3][11]

In 1958 Soyinka married British writer Barbara Dixon, whom he met at the University of Leeds in the 1950s. The couple gave birth to a son, Olaokun.[12] He married Olaide Idowu, a Nigerian librarian, in 1963 and they had three daughters: Moremi, Iyetade (1965–2013),[13] and Peyibomi and the second son, Ilemakin (born 1971).[12][14] At Ebrohimie Road, Soyinka lived with Olaide and raised his children.[15] Soyinka's third marriage was to Folake Doherty, his student at the University of Ife, where they first met. Folake's parents disputed the relationship between them following Soyinka’s fame.[16] They eventually married in 1989 and had three sons: Tunlewa, Bojode and Eniara.[17]

London and theatrical career

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During his final years at the University College, Ibadan, Soyinka's first performance was his work "Keffi's Birthday Treat", a short narrative broadcast on the Children's Programme of the Nigerian Broadcasting Service's National Programme. It was published in one of the earliest issues of Nigeria Radio Times in July 1954.[18] Soyinka went in exile after his release from prison. He stayed at his friend's farm in Southern France, where, according to him, sought solitude. During that time, he wrote Poems from Prison, and by the end of the year, he returned to Nigeria. He became the Chair of Drama at Ibadan.[19] Along 15 actors from the University of Ibadan's Theatre Art Company, Soyinka visited the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in 1970, where his play was premiered.[20]

In April 1971, concerned about the political situation of Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began years of voluntary exile.[21] He travelled to Paris, France, to take the lead role as Patrice Lumumba, the murdered first Prime Minister of the Congo, in Joan Littlewood's May 1971 production of Murderous Angels, Conor Cruise O'Brien's play about the Congo Crisis.[22][23] He was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds in 1973.[citation needed] In the same year, the Royal National Theatre in London commissioned and premiered his play. From 1973 to 1975, Soyinka spent time on scientific studies; he spent a year as a visiting fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge.[24] Soyinka founded Guerrilla Unit, a theatrical group.[citation needed] Between 1975 and 1984, he was active in politics.

Later years

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Soyinka in 2015

From 1975 to 1999, Soyinka served as a Professor of Comparative literature at Obafemi Awolowo University; in the US, he taught at Cornell University as the Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991; at Emory University, he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts in 1996 and has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He also served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs, and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale. He was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.[25]

In December 2017, Soyinka received the "Special Prize" of the Europe Theatre Prize, which is awarded to one who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".[26] After becoming Chair of Drama at the University of Ibadan, he became politically active. Following the January 1966 military coup, he met with Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor in the Mid-Western Region to avert the civil war. Soyinka sought the support of Western Region military leaders [citation needed] He also met Olusegun Obasanjo –who is already aligned with the Nigerian government– to relay the intentions of the Biafrans. After Obasanjo disclosed his conversation, Soyinka was arrested for 22 months,[27]

Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 [28][29] It made him the first African Nobel laureate. According to the prize citation, 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 is "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved".[30] Soyinka's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was dedicated to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. The speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the National Party in South Africa. Also in the same year, he received the Agip Prize for Literature.[citation needed]

In November 1994, Soyinka fled from Nigeria on a motorcycle through the border with Benin,[31] and then went to the United States.[32] In 1997, he was charged with treason by the Nigerian military head of state, General Sani Abacha.[33][34] The International Parliament of Writers (IPW), established in 1993 to provide support for writers victimized by persecution, and whom Soyinka was the organization's second president from 1997 to 2000, opposed the charge. In 2006, Soyinka cancelled his keynote speech for the annual S.E.A. Write Award Ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand, inorder to protest the Thai military's successful coup against the government.[35]

In April 2007, Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread electoral fraud and violence.[citation needed] 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.[36] He supported the freedom of worship but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence.[37]

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.[38] He was awarded the International Humanist Award in 2014.[39][40] He also served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs.[41]

Plays

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Main pages: User:SafariScribe/Wole Soyinka's plays and Wole Soyinka bibliography

Soyinka's first written and published play is The Swamp Dwellers in 1958.[citation needed] A year later, he published a comic play, The Lion and the Jewel. His wrote The Trials of Brother Jero as part of Three Plays. He wrote his first full-length play My Father's Burden. He wrote essays that defended Nigerian literacy, among them, "Death and the King's Horsemen",[42] and "Towards a True Theater" (1962) published by Transition Magazine.[citation needed]

Soyinka became a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ.[when?][citation needed] In 1964 he resigned from his university post, as a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the authorities. In 1965, his book, The Interpreters was published in London by André Deutsch. Soyinka was also arrested for holding up Radio Nigeria at gunpoint and demanded for the resignation of Samuel Akintola, the Premier of Western Region. He swapped the recorded manifesto speech of the Premier with another tape containing accusations of electoral malpractice by the government.[11] He was released after some months of confinement, as a result of protests by the international community of writers.[citation needed] In the same year, he wrote two dramatic pieces Before the Blackout and Kongi's Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio play for BBC in London. Soyinka began as a Senior Lecturer in the department of English language of University of Lagos.[when?][43] In 1974, Oxford University Press issued his Collected Plays, Volume II. In 1975, Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor for Transition Magazine, which was based in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, where he moved for some time.[21] He used his columns in the magazine 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.

In 1976, he published his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman, as well as a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World.[44] 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 1981 Soyinka published his autobiographical work Aké: The Years of Childhood, which won a 1983 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.[45] 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. He 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.[46] 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.

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.[47] 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.[48] 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 following year, another part of his autobiography appeared: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946–1965). In 1995, 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.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Soyinka's play King Baabu premièred in Lagos in 2001,[49] a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship.[49] 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.

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."[50] 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."[51]

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,[52][53][54] 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.[55]

Performances

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The Royal Court Theatre in London, 2020; most Soyinka's plays are performed in the theatre

Soyinka’s play, The Lion and the Jewel was performed in London, and it attracted interest from members of Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka had to move to London to work as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre.[citation needed] During that period, his two plays were performed in Ibadan, Nigeria. His unpublished play, The Invention, written in 1957, was also produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1960[citation needed] and was his first work to be performed there.[56] His play, The Trials of Brother Jero , was performed in the Mellanby Hall of University College Ibadan in April 1960.[citation needed]

His play, My Father's Burden, was directed by Olusegun Olusola and was featured on Western Nigeria Television on 6 August 1960.[57] His work A Dance of the Forests premiered in Lagos on 1 October 1960, as the official play for the Nigerian Independence Day.[citation needed] His first feature-length film, Culture in Transition, was released in 1963.[citation needed] His play The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Arts Festival on 14 September 1965 in Theatre Royal Stratford East[where?]. 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.[22]

In 1983 his play Requiem for a Futurologist had its first performance at the University of Ife. In 1984, he directed the film Blues for a Prodigal, which was screened at the University of Ife.[58] 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. In 1968, the Negro Ensemble Company in New York produced Kongi's Harvest.[59] Two films about his life have been announced: The Man Died, directed by Awam Amkpa, a feature film based on a fictionalized form of Soyinka's 1973 prison memoirs of the same name;[60][61] and Ebrohimie Road, written and directed by Kola Tubosun, which takes a look at the house where Soyinka lived between 1967 – when he arrived back in Ibadan to take on the directorship of the School of Drama – and 1972, when he left for exile after being released from prison.[62][63]

Poems

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Main page: User:SafariScribe/Poetry of Wole Soyinka

During the colonial era, Soyinka started writing poems. His first poetry collection "Idanre and Other Poems" (1976) was published. It showcases his use of language and form, exploring themes of identity, culture, and social justice. Influenced by Yoruba mythology and Nigerian politics, critics asserts that Soyinka's work especially poems often critiques societal norms and explores the human condition.

Soyinka's poetry is characterized by its imagery and complex symbolism. His writing often blends traditional and modern elements.

Styles

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Main page: User:SafariScribe/Wole Soyinka's writing style

Scholars, including Adeniran, has noted that Soyinka’s writings reflect his life.[64]

Legacy

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Influence

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The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was founded in 1994 by the Pyrate Confraternity to honour, in their own words, "one of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring literary icon: Wole Soyinka".[65] In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre honoured Soyinka with a writers' enclave built in Adeyipo village, Ibadan, Nigeria.[66] He was appointed a patron of Humanists UK in 2020.[67]

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.[68][69] 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.[70] 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.[71] In 2018 the University of Ibadan's Arts Theatre was renamed as Wole Soyinka Theatre.[72][73][74] In July 2024, Bola Tinubu renamed the National Arts Theatre in Iganmu, Lagos after Soyinka in commemoration of his 90th birthday.[75][76][77][78]

Critical reputation

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Main article: List of awards and honors received by Wole Soyinka

Soyinka won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1983 and 2013. He rejected an honorary degree from the University of Ibadan. In 1986 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Agip Prize for Literature. He was also confered the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic by the military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida. Soyinka is a tribal aristocrat; one vested with the right to use the Yoruba title Oloye as a pre-nominal honorific.[79] In 2005, he was given a chieftaincy title as the "Akinlatun" of Egbaland. He was honored with the Golden Plate Award by the American Academy of Achievement. It was presented to him by the Awards Council member, Archbishop Desmond Tutu at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town.[80]

In 2017, he received the Special Prize category of the Europe Theatre Prize, in Rome. In August 2024, the President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, honoured the Soyinka with the Haydée Santamaría medal. In April 2025, American President, through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Pennsylvania Senate, honoured Soyinka with the Distinguished Honors for "his extraordinary contributions to literature, culture, human rights, and global discourse", and Nike Okundaye during the years' African Cultural Festival in Pennsylvania State Capitol.[81][82]

Speculation

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Politics

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Main page: User:SafariScribe/Political views of Wole Soyinka

Religion

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Main page: User:SafariScribe/Religious views of Wole Soyinka

Soyinka grew up as a Christian. He rejected the concept of God in Christianity while having his secondary education at Government College, Ibadan.[6] In 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."[83]

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.[84]

Controversy

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In a book published in 2020, University College London academic Caroline Davis examined archival evidence of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding of African authors in the post-independence period.[85] One chapter of the book, titled "Wole Soyinka, the Transcription Centre, and the CIA", focused specifically on Soyinka's receipt of funding from CIA front organisations such as the Farfield Foundation and the Transcription Centre. The funding supported Soyinka's publishing and the global production of some of his theatre plays. The book states that even after the CIA's covert role in some of these initiatives was revealed in the 1960s, Soyinka had "unusually close ties to the US government even to the point of frequently meeting with US intelligence in the late 1970s".

When the book was published Soyinka vociferously denied having been a CIA agent and stated that he would "[follow the authors] to the end of the earth and to the pit of hell until I get a retraction".[86]

Nigerian academic Adekeye Adebajo has argued in the Johannesburg Review of Books that Davis does not directly accuse Soyinka of being a CIA agent and as a result Soyinka's denials are also misdirected.[87] Adebajo states that, "Any suggestion that Soyinka was also a pro-American agent would not be borne out by his political activism, which frequently condemned US-supported Cold War clients." However he also suggests that "for all his eloquent fervour, Soyinka has not rebutted these allegations in the detailed, evidence-based manner that could have put an end to this debate".[87]

See also

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References

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Notes

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  1. ^ /ˈwoʊleɪ sɔɪˈ(j)ɪŋkə, - ʃɔɪˈ-/WOH-lay s(h)oy-(Y)ING-kə

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Dauda & Falola 2021, p. 34.
  2. ^ "Famous birthdays for July 13: Ken Jeong, Patrick Stewart". United Press International. 13 July 2024. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Snethen, Jessica (11 August 2009). "Wole Soyinka (1934- )". Blackpast. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
  4. ^ Gibbs 1988, pp. 526.
  5. ^ Maduakor 1986, pp. 227.
  6. ^ a b Dauda & Falola 2021, p. 86.
  7. ^ Nigeria, Guardian (23 July 2017). "Genius of the unconventional and the patterning of dualities: Wole Soyinka's early childhood". The Guardian Nigeria. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  8. ^ Nigeria, Guardian (9 July 2017). "Genius of the unconventional and the patterning of dualities: Wole Soyinka's early childhood". The Guardian Nigeria. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  9. ^ Dauda & Falola 2021, p. 80.
  10. ^ "Wole Soyinka". Britannica. 1 March 2025. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  11. ^ a b Dauda & Falola 2021, p. 81.
  12. ^ a b Nation, The (12 July 2019). "10 things you didn't know about Professor Wole Soyinka". The Nation Newspaper. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  13. ^ "Nobel Laureate Soyinka's Daughter Dies". Sahara Reporters. 29 December 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  14. ^ "Ebrohimie Road, Reviewed: Wole Soyinka as Father and Husband". Open Country Mag. 18 August 2024. Retrieved 5 March 2025.
  15. ^ "Ebrohimie Road, Reviewed: Wole Soyinka as Father and Husband". Open Country Mag. 18 August 2024. Retrieved 5 March 2025.
  16. ^ Simwa, Adrianna (27 August 2018). "Wole Soyinka wife and their love story". Legit.ng. Retrieved 5 March 2025.
  17. ^ Okogba, Emmanuel (18 December 2017). "Artists and marital breakdown: Why some don't marry at all". Vanguard News. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  18. ^ Gibbs 1980, p. 21.
  19. ^ Ige, Tofarati (20 July 2024). "Wole Soyinka: The man, the writer, the enigma". Punch Newspapers. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
  20. ^ Ezugwu, Obinna (19 July 2021). "Salute to Kongi at 87". Business Hallmark. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
  21. ^ a b 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.
  22. ^ a b Gibbs, James. "Soyinka, Wole 1934–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  23. ^ Jeyifo, Biodun (2004). "Chronology". Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics, and Postcolonialism. Cambridge University Press. p. xxvii. ISBN 9781139439084.
  24. ^ Gumbel, Andrew (3 November 2005). "Wole Soyinka on how he came to write Death and the King's Horseman". The Guardian.
  25. ^ "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.
  26. ^ Ajibade, Kunle (12 December 2017). "Wole Soyinka Wins The Europe Theatre Prize". PM NEWS Nigeria. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  27. ^ "Wole Soyinka: Nigeria's Nobel Laureate", African Voices, CNN, 27 July 2009.
  28. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 | Wole Soyinka", Nobelprize.org, 23 August 2010.
  29. ^ "Wole Soyinka: A Chronology". African Postcolonial Literature in English. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  30. ^ Dasenbrock, Reed Way (January 1987). "Wole Soyinka's Nobel Prize". World Literature Today. 61 (1): 4–9. JSTOR 40142439.
  31. ^ Jaggi, Maya (28 May 2007). "The voice of conscience". The Guardian.
  32. ^ French, Howard W. (13 March 1997). "Nigerian Nobel Winner Faces Treason Charges". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  33. ^ French, Howard W. (13 March 1997). "Nigerian Nobel Winner Faces Treason Charges". The New York Times.
  34. ^ Roberts, James (23 October 2011). "Nobel winner charged with treason". The Independent.
  35. ^ S. P. Somtow, "Why artistic freedom matters" Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Nation, 16 November 2006.
  36. ^ "Wole Soyinka". Nigeria News. 26 February 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2023 – via PressReader.
  37. ^ Gardham, Duncan (1 February 2010). "Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says England is 'cesspit' of extremism". The Daily Telegraph.
  38. ^ lifeandtimesnews.com (30 June 2017). "Nigeria's Renowned Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka - LifeAndTimes News". Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  39. ^ "Wole Soyinka's International Humanist Award acceptance speech – full text". International Humanist and Ethical Union. 12 August 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  40. ^ "Wole Soyinka wins International Humanist Award". British Humanist Association. 10 August 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  41. ^ "Nobel Laureate Soyinka at NYU for Events in October", News Release, NYU, 16 September 2016.
  42. ^ Amayi, Zakayo (22 June 2013). "Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka's grumpy battles to defend literary legacy". Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  43. ^ Ezugwu, Obinna (19 July 2021). "Salute To Kongi At 87 - Business Hallmark". hallmarknews.com. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  44. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  45. ^ "Winners: 1983 Nonfiction – Ake". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
  46. ^ Soyinka, Wole (2006), You Must Set Forth at Dawn, p. 6.
  47. ^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Wole Soyinka". Books and Writers. Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015.
  48. ^ Soyinka, Wole (1992). From Zia, with Love; And, A Scourge of Hyacinths. Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-0-413-67240-7.
  49. ^ a b Eniwoke Ibagere, "Nigeria's Soyinka back on stage", BBC News, 6 August 2005.
  50. ^ 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.
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Sources

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