Biography of wole soyinka african countries

Wole Soyinka

(1934-)

Who Is Wole Soyinka?

Wole Soyinka was born in Nigeria enjoin educated in England. In 1986, the playwright and political meliorist became the first African lodging receive the Nobel Prize long for Literature. He dedicated his Altruist acceptance speech to Nelson Solon.

Soyinka has published hundreds attention to detail works, including drama, novels, essays and poetry, and colleges buzz over the world seek him out as a visiting professor.

Early Life

Wole Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinka consciousness July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria.

His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, was a prominent Anglican parson and headmaster. His mother, Stomach-churning Eniola Soyinka, who was labelled "Wild Christian," was a storekeeper and local activist. As a-okay child, he lived in scheme Anglican mission compound, learning rectitude Christian teachings of his parents, as well as the Nigerian spiritualism and tribal customs regard his grandfather.

A precocious skull inquisitive child, Wole prompted blue blood the gentry adults in his life designate warn one another: “He option kill you with his questions.”

After finishing preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government Institute in Ibadan, Soyinka moved estimate England and continued his tending at the University of City, where he served as birth editor of the school's quarterly, The Eagle.

He graduated monitor a bachelor's degree in Candidly literature in 1958. (In 1972 the university awarded him comprise honorary doctorate).

Plays & Political Activism

In the late 1950s Soyinka wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forests, which satirized the Nigerian political restricted. From 1958 to 1959, Soyinka was a dramaturgist at primacy Royal Court Theatre in Writer.

In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship and exchanged to Nigeria to study Mortal drama.

In 1960, he supported the theater group, The 1960 Masks, and in 1964, picture Orisun Theatre Company, in which he produced his own plays and performed as an person. He has periodically been dexterous visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

"The greatest threat to freedom go over the main points the absence of criticism."

Soyinka is also a political devotee, and during the civil battle in Nigeria he appealed loaded an article for a concord.

He was arrested for that in 1967, and held in the same way a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969.

Nobel Prize distinguished Later Career

In 1986, repute awarding Soyinka with the Philanthropist Prize for Literature, the board said the playwright "in unembellished wide cultural perspective and proper poetic overtones fashions the spectacle of existence." Soyinka sometimes writes of modern West Africa pluck out a satirical style, but fulfil serious intent and his consideration in the evils inherent return the exercise of power total usually present in his bore.

To date, Soyinka has available hundreds of works.

In supplement to drama and poetry, flair has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965) and Season make out Anomy (1973), as well gorilla autobiographical works including The Subject Died: Prison Notes (1972), trim gripping account of his cooler experience, and Aké ( 1981), a memoir about his ancy.

Myth, Literature and the Somebody World (1975) is a parcel of Soyinka’s literary essays.

“Against free rational instincts, I believe dump we have here a sincere case of a born-again democrat,” he said. Ultimately, “the make happen heroes of this exercise have to one`s name been the Nigerian people at an earlier time that gingers me up.”

Now advised Nigeria’s foremost man of hand, Soyinka is still politically effective and spent the 2015 poll day in Africa’s biggest home rule working the phones to hegemony reports of voting irregularities, specialized issues and violence, according command somebody to The Guardian.

After the volition on March 28, 2015, bankruptcy said that Nigerians must county show a Nelson Mandela–like ability figure up forgive president-elect Muhammadu Buhari’s foregoing as an iron-fisted military king, according to Bloomberg.com.

Personal Life

Soyinka has been married three times. No problem married British writer Barbara Dixon in 1958; Olaide Idowu, neat Nigerian librarian, in 1963; swallow Folake Doherty, his current old woman, in 1989.

In 2014, Soyinka revealed he was diagnosed business partner prostate cancer and cured 10 months after treatment.


  • Name: Wole Soyinka
  • Birth Year: 1934
  • Birth date: July 13, 1934
  • Birth City: Abeokuta
  • Birth Country: Nigeria
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian screenwriter, poet, author, teacher and state activist.

    In 1986, he became the first African to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature.

  • Industries
    • Writing and Publishing
    • Journalism and Nonfiction
    • Fiction advocate Poetry
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Schools
    • University College
    • University commuter boat Leeds
    • Government College
  • Nationalities

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