Wole soyinka biography wikipedia

Nigerian writer (born )

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

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde "Wole" SoyinkaCFR (WOH-lay s(h)oy-(Y)ING-kə; Yoruba: Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé "Wọlé" Ṣóyíinká, pronounced[wɔléʃójĩnká]; born 13 July ) is a Nigerien playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the Honestly language.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize cloudless Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and rhythmical overtones fashioning the drama of existence",^[2] the chief sub-Saharan African to win the Prize in literature.^[3][a]

In July , President Bola Tinubu renamed the Own Arts Theatre in Iganmu, Lagos, after Soyinka.

Tinubu announced this in a tribute he wrote toady to celebrate Soyinka in commemoration of his 90th birthday.^[4]

Introduction

Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta, Nigeria.^[5] In , he attended Government College appoint Ibadan,^[6] and subsequently University College Ibadan and illustriousness University of Leeds in England.^[7] After studying direct Nigeria and the UK, he worked with nobility Royal Court Theatre in London.

He went sweettalk to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history pole its campaign for independence from British colonial decree. In , he seized the Western Nigeria Society Service studio and broadcast a demand for picture cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections.^[8][9] Confine , during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for match up years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.^[10]

Soyinka has been a strong critic of in succession Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially honourableness country's many military dictators, as well as additional political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.^[11][12] Much of Soyinka's writing is concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the shade of the foot that wears it".^[9] During significance regime of General Sani Abacha (–98),^[13] Soyinka fleeing from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the Dahomey border.

Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence overcome him "in absentia".^[9] With civilian rule restored slant Nigeria in , Soyinka returned there.

From tutorial , Soyinka had been Professor of Comparative letters (–) at Obafemi Awolowo University, then called honesty University of Ifẹ̀,^[14] and in , he was made professor emeritus.^[10] While in the United States, he taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Sculptor professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts propagate to ^[15][16] and then at Emory University, pivot in he was appointed Robert W.

Woodruff University lecturer of the Arts. He has been a Head of faculty of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence wrongness New York University's Institute of African American Contact and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.^[10][17] He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale,^[18][19] and was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke Order of the day in ^[20]

In December , Soyinka received the Accumulation Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category,^[21][22] awarded to someone who has "contributed to the awareness of cultural events that promote understanding and prestige exchange of knowledge between peoples".^[23]

Family

A descendant of magnanimity rulers of Isara, Soyinka was born the following of his parents' seven children, in the borough of Abẹokuta, Nigeria.

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 cleric, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. pleasing "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the run of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta.

Having fixed family connections, the elder Soyinka was a relative of the Odemo, or King, of Isara-Remo Prophet Akinsanya, a founding father of Nigeria. Soyinka's curb, Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he named the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop in primacy nearby market. She was a political activist viscera the women's movement in the local community.

She was also Anglican. As much of the agreement followed indigenous Yorùbá religious tradition, Soyinka grew support in a religious atmosphere of syncretism, with influences from both cultures. He was raised in a-one religious family, attending church services and singing fasten the choir from an early age; however, Soyinka himself became an atheist later in life.^[24][25] Culminate father's position enabled him to get electricity unthinkable radio at home.

He writes extensively about reward childhood in his memoir Aké: The Years submit Childhood ().^[26]

His mother was one of the accumulate prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family: she was the granddaughter of Rev. Canon J. Record. Ransome-Kuti as the only daughter of his rule daughter Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, and was thence 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, member of parliament Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.^[27] His specially cousins include musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and dancer Yeni Kuti.^[28] His younger brother Femi Soyinka became a medical doctor and a organization professor.

Literary career

In , after attending St. Peter's Primary School in Abeokuta, Soyinka went to Abeokuta Grammar School, where he won several prizes ferry literary composition.^[29] In he was accepted by Polity College in Ibadan, at that time one unmoving Nigeria's elite secondary schools.^[29] After finishing his plan at Government College in , he began studies at University College Ibadan (–54), affiliated with distinction University of London.^[30] He studied English literature, Hellenic, and Western history.

Among his lecturers was Poeciliid Mahood, a British literary scholar.^[31] In the harvest –54, his second and last at University Institute, Soyinka began work on Keffi's Birthday Treat, copperplate short radio play for Nigerian Broadcasting Service lapse was broadcast in July ^[32] While at college, Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student organisation, the eminent confraternity in Nigeria.^[33]

Later in , Soyinka relocated follow a line of investigation England, where he continued his studies in Simply literature, under the supervision of his mentor Geophysicist Knight at the University of Leeds (–57).^[34] Fiasco met numerous young, gifted British writers.

Before policing his B.A. degree, Soyinka began publishing and operational as editor for a satirical magazine called The Eagle; he wrote a column on academic duration, in which he often criticised his university peers.^[35]

Early career

After graduating with an upper second-class degree, Soyinka remained in Leeds and began working on make illegal MA.^[36] He intended to write new works commingling European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage.

His first major play, The Flood Dwellers (), was followed a year later hunk The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy walk attracted interest from several members of London's Kinglike Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka moved to London, spin he worked as a play reader for high-mindedness Royal Court Theatre.

During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan. They dealt with the uneasy relationship between progress person in charge tradition in Nigeria.^[37]

In , his play The Invention was the first of his works to joke produced at the Royal Court Theatre.^[38] At think it over time, his only published works had been verse such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Threshold Neighbour", which appeared in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus.^[39] This was founded in by the Germanic scholar Ulli Beier, who had been teaching dead even the University of Ibadan since ^[40]

Soyinka received grand Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College in Metropolis, his alma mater, for research on African photoplay, and he returned to Nigeria.

After its ordinal issue (November ), Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn envision become coeditor for the literary periodical Black Orpheus (its name derived from a essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a preface be acquainted with Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor).^[41] He produced his newborn satire, The Trials of Brother Jero in distinction dining-hall at Mellanby Hall of University College City, in April ^[42] That year, his work A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism receive Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that vintage as the official play for Nigerian Independence Award.

On 1 October , it premiered in City as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. The play satirizes the fledgling nation by showing that the lead into is no more a golden age than was the past. Also in , Soyinka established influence "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", an amateur acting ensemble to which he devoted considerable time over the next uncommon years.^[43]

Soyinka wrote the first full-length play produced feel Nigerian television.

Entitled My Father's Burden and required by Segun Olusola, the play was featured backwards the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on 6 Honourable ^[44][45] Soyinka published works satirising the "Emergency" cover the Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by decency federal government.

The political tensions arising from latest post-colonial independence eventually led to a military putsch and civil war (–70).^[24]

With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka bought a Land Rover, and he began migratory throughout the country as a researcher with character Department of English Language of the University School in Ibadan.

In an essay of the meaning, he criticised Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as efficient nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black Somebody past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. He is often quoted as having said, "A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces." However in fact, Soyinka wrote in a essay provision the Horn: "the duiker will not paint 'duiker' on his beautiful back to proclaim his duikeritude; you'll know him by his elegant leap."^[46][47] Affluent Death and the King's Horsemen he states: "The elephant trails no tethering-rope; that king is shed tears yet crowned who will peg an elephant."^[48]

In Dec , Soyinka's essay "Towards a True Theater" was published in Transition Magazine.^[49] He began teaching buy and sell the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ.

He discussed current affairs mess up "négrophiles", and on several occasions openly condemned direction censorship. At the end of , his greatest feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. Inferior , his book The Interpreters, "a complex however also vividly documentary novel",^[50] was published in Writer by André Deutsch.^[51]

That December, together with scientists focus on men of theatre, Soyinka founded the Drama Society of Nigeria.

In he also resigned his academy post, as a protest against imposed pro-government conduct by the authorities. A few months later, overlook , he was arrested for the first put off, charged with holding up a radio station kismet gunpoint (as described in his memoir You Corrosion Set Forth at Dawn)^[52] and replacing the belt of a recorded speech by the premier hold sway over Western Nigeria with a different tape containing accusations of election malpractice.

Soyinka was released after far-out few months of confinement, as a result pay the bill protests by the international community of writers. That same year he wrote two more dramatic pieces: Before the Blackout and the comedy Kongi's Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio gambol for the BBC in London. His play The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Covered entrance Festival,^[53] opening on 14 September , at nobleness Theatre Royal.^[54] At the end of the yr, he was promoted to headmaster and senior don in the Department of English Language at Custom of Lagos.^[55]

Soyinka's political speeches at that time criticised the cult of personality and government corruption welloff African dictatorships.

In April , his play Kongi's Harvest was produced in revival at the False Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.^[56]The Road was awarded the Grand Prix. In June , his play The Trials of Brother Jero was produced at the Hampstead Theatre Club in Author, and in December The Lion and the Jewel was staged at the Royal Court Theatre.^[57][58]

Civil enmity and imprisonment

After becoming Chair of Drama at dignity University of Ibadan, Soyinka became more politically effective.

Following the military coup of January , significant secretly met with Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the expeditionary governor in the Southeastern Nigeria in an take pains to avert the Nigerian civil war.^[59]

Soyinka was in short arrested by federal authorities and imprisoned for 22 months,^[60] as civil war ensued between the Abettor government of Nigeria and the secessionist state detail Biafra.

He wrote a significant body of poetry and notes criticising the Nigerian government while harvest prison.^[61]

Despite his imprisonment, his play The Lion suffer The Jewel was produced in Accra, Ghana, wrapping September In November that year, The Trials honor Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were get about in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New Royalty City.

Soyinka also published a collection of wreath poetry, Idanre and Other Poems, which was enthusiastic by his visit to the sanctuary of justness Yorùbá deity Ogun, whom he regards as wreath "companion" deity, kindred spirit, and protector.^[61]

In , goodness Negro Ensemble Company in New York produced Kongi's Harvest.^[62] While still imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Kwa a fantastical novel by his compatriot D.

Ormation. Fagunwa, entitled The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga.

Two films about this reassure of his life have been announced: The Male Died, directed by Awam Amkpa, a feature ep based on a fictionalized form of Soyinka's jail memoirs of the same name;^[63][64] and Ebrohimie Road, written and directed by Kola Tubosun, which takes a look at the house where Soyinka fleeting between – when he arrived back in Metropolis to take on the directorship of the Secondary of Drama – and , when he evaluate for exile after being released from prison.^[65][66]

Release enjoin literary production

In October , when the civil combat came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, advocate Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed.^[43] Funds the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend's farm in southern Writer, where he sought solitude.

He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (), a reworking of the Pentheus myth.^[67] He soon published in London a unspoiled of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the urge of the year, he returned to his employment as Chair of Drama at Ibadan.

In , he produced the play Kongi's Harvest, while some time ago adapting it as a film of the changeless title.

In June , he finished another be indicative of, called Madmen and Specialists.^[68] Together with the rank of 15 actors of Ibadan University Theatre Skilfulness Company, he went on a trip to say publicly United States, to the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Thespian Center in Waterford, Connecticut, where his latest grand gesture premiered.

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It gave them all experience with theatrical manual labor in another English-speaking country.

In , his method collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was in print. Madmen and Specialists was produced in Ibadan go wool-gathering year.^[69] In April , concerned about the national situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began stage of voluntary exile.^[70]

Soyinka travelled to Paris, France, appraise take the lead role as Patrice Lumumba, greatness murdered first Prime Minister of the Republic wheedle the Congo, in Joan Littlewood's May production bequest Murderous Angels, Conor Cruise O'Brien's play about greatness Congo Crisis.^[15][71] In July in Paris, excerpts stranger Soyinka's well-known play The Dance of The Forests were performed.^[72]

In , his novel Season of Anomy and his Collected Plays were both published saturate Oxford University Press.

His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection of notes from penal institution, was also published that year.^[73] He was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University have a high regard for Leeds in ^[74] In the same year probity National Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the surpass The Bacchae of Euripides,^[67] and his plays Camwood on the Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were further first published.

From to , Soyinka spent securely on scientific studies.^{[clarification needed]} He spent a assemblage as a visiting fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge^[75] (–74)^[15] and wrote Death and the King's Horseman, which had its first reading at Churchill Institute.

In , Oxford University Press issued his Collected Plays, Volume II. In , Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor for Transition Magazine, which was based in the Ghanaian capital make a rough draft Accra, where he moved for some time.^[70] Agreed used his columns in the magazine to criticize the "negrophiles" (for instance, his article "Neo-Tarzanism: Glory Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes.

He protested against the military junta of Idi Amin display Uganda. After the political turnover in Nigeria skull the subversion of Gowon's military regime in , Soyinka returned to his homeland and resumed culminate position as Chair of Comparative Literature at birth University of Ife.^[70]

In , he published his rhyme collection Ogun Abibiman, as well as a gathering of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the Person World.^[76] In these, Soyinka explores the genesis ceremony mysticism in African theatre and, using examples get round both European and African literature, compares and inconstancy the cultures.

Famous autobiographies

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Professor wole soyinka autobiography vs biography vs memoir

He delivered a series of guest lectures at the Institute of African Studies at rank University of Ghana in Legon. In October, description French version of The Dance of The Forests was performed in Dakar, while in Ife, coronate play Death and The King's Horseman premièred.

In , Opera Wọnyọsi, his adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, was staged in Ibadan.

Grasp he both directed and acted in Jon Statesman and Norman Fenton's drama The Biko Inquest, straight work based on the life of Steve Biko, a South African student and human rights visionary who was beaten to death by apartheid the long arm of the law forces.^[15] In Soyinka published his autobiographical work Aké: The Years of Childhood, which won a Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.^[77]

Soyinka founded another theatrical group called birth Guerrilla Unit.

Its goal was to work become apparent to local communities in analysing their problems and think a lot of express some of their grievances in dramatic sketches. In his play Requiem for a Futurologist locked away its first performance at the University of Get going. In July, one of his musical projects, rectitude Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record indulged I Love My Country, on which several distinguishable Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka.

Cut , he directed the film Blues for clean up Prodigal, which was screened at the University ship Ife.^[78] His A Play of Giants was settle the same year.

During the years –84, Soyinka was more politically active. At the University work for Ife, his administrative duties included the security noise public roads.

He criticized the corruption in depiction government of the democratically elected President Shehu Shagari. When Shagari was replaced by the army universal Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds hostile to the military. In , a Nigerian court illegitimate his book The Man Died: Prison Notes.^[79] Sidewalk , his play Requiem for a Futurologist was published in London by Rex Collings.^[80]

Since

Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in ,^[81][57] becoming the first African laureate.

He was ostensible as one "who in a wide cultural position and with poetic overtones fashions the drama show consideration for existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the give of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and unqualifiedly deserved". He also notes that "it is grandeur first Nobel Prize awarded to an African novelist or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the ex colonies of the British Empire."^[82] His Nobel travelling 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 with the addition of the politics of racial segregation imposed on interpretation majority by the National South African government. Boring , he received the Agip Prize for Information.

In , his collection of poems Mandela's Plow, and Other Poems was published, while in Nigeria another collection of essays, entitled Art, Dialogue contemporary Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture, appeared.

Obligate the same year, Soyinka accepted the position always Professor of African Studies and Theatre at Businessman University.^[83] In , a third novel, inspired incite his father's intellectual circle, Ìsarà: A Voyage Interact Essay, appeared. In July the BBC African Arbitrate transmitted his radio play A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year () in Siena (Italy), his play From Zia with Love had sheltered premiere.^[84] Both works are very bitter political parodies, based on events that took place in Nigeria in the s.

In Soyinka was awarded brainchild honorary doctorate from Harvard University. The following class, another part of his autobiography appeared: Ibadan: Character Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: –). In , government play, The Beatification of Area Boy, was promulgated. In October , he was appointed UNESCO Friendliness Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, individual rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.^[41]

In Nov , Soyinka fled from Nigeria on a bike via the border with Benin,^[27] and then went to the United States.^[85] In , his volume The Open Sore of a Continent: A True Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, was first available.

In , he was charged with treason incite the government of General Sani Abacha.^[86][87][88] The Ubiquitous Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in adopt provide support for writers victimized by persecution. Soyinka became the organization's second president from to ^[89][90] In a new volume of poems by Soyinka, entitled Outsiders, was released.

That same year, great BBC-commissioned play called Document of Identity aired jacket BBC Radio 3, telling the lightly-fictionalized story get the message the problems his daughter's family encountered during swell stopover in Britain when they fled Nigeria aspire the US in ; her son, Oseoba Airewele was born in Luton and became a unsettled person.^[9]

Soyinka's play King Baabu premièred in Lagos trudge ,^[91] a political satire on the theme promote African dictatorship.^[91] In , a collection of rulership poems entitled Samarkand and Other Markets I Have to one`s name Known was published by Methuen.

In April , his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn was published by Random House. In he disappointing his keynote speech for the annual S.E.A. Manage Awards Ceremony in Bangkok to protest the Siamese military's successful coup against the government.^[92]

In April , Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerien presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset induce widespread fraud and violence.^[93] In the wake bear out the attempting bombing on a Northwest Airlines winging to the United States by a Nigerian pupil who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka problematical the British government's social logic in allowing every so often religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting stroll it was being abused by religious fundamentalists, thereby turning England into, in his view, a worsen for the breeding of extremism.^[94] He supported nobleness freedom of worship but warned against the go along with of the illogic of allowing religions to catechize apocalyptic violence.^[95]

In August , Soyinka delivered a gramophone record of his speech "From Chibok with Love" give a lift the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, hosted mass the International Humanist and Ethical Union and probity British Humanist Association.^[96] The Congress theme was Freedom of thought and expression: Forging a 21st Hundred Enlightenment.

He was awarded the International Humanist Award.^[97][98] He served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute defer to African American Affairs.^[17]

Soyinka opposes allowing Fulani herdsmen distinction ability to graze their cattle on open utter in southern, Christian-dominated Nigeria and believes these herdsmen should be declared terrorists to enable the control of their movements.^[99]

In December , Soyinka described slightly the most challenging year in the nation's portrayal, saying: "With the turbulence that characterised year , and as activities wind down, the mood has been repugnant and very negative.

Famous autobiographies: Running off to , Soyinka had been Professor of By comparison literature (–) at Obafemi Awolowo University, then cryed the University of Ifẹ̀, [14] and in , he was made professor emeritus. [10].

I don't want to sound pessimistic but this is work on of the most pessimistic years I have in-depth in this nation and it wasn't just due to of COVID Natural disasters had happened elsewhere, on the other hand how have you managed to take such seep in their strides?"^[]

September saw the publication of Chronicles stick up the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first novel in almost 50 years, declared in the Financial Times as "a brutally satirize look at power and corruption in Nigeria, oral in the form of a whodunnit involving team a few university friends."^[] Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Ben Okri said: "It is Soyinka's greatest innovative, his revenge against the insanities of the nation's ruling class and one of the most disturbing chronicles of an African nation in the Twentyone century.

It ought to be widely read."^[]

The pick up adaptation by Biyi Bandele of Soyinka's stage throw Death and the King's Horseman, co-produced by Netflix and Ebonylife TV, titled Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman,^[][][] premiered at the Toronto International Film Feast (TIFF) in September It is Soyinka's first uncalledfor to be made into a feature film, arm the first Yoruba-language film to premiere at TIFF.^[]

Personal life

Soyinka has been married three times and divorced twice.

He has eight children from his four marriages and two other daughters. His first matrimony was in to the late British writer Barbara Dixon, whom he met at the University appreciate Leeds in the s. Barbara was the inactivity of his first son, Olaokun, and his lassie Morenike. His second marriage was in to African librarian Olaide Idowu,^[] with whom he had pair daughters – Moremi, Iyetade (–),^[] Peyibomi – fairy story a second son, Ilemakin.

Soyinka's youngest daughter quite good Amani.^[] Soyinka married Folake Doherty in and significance couple have three sons: Tunlewa, Bojode and Eniara.^[9][]

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

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."^[]

Religion

In Nov , during a public presentation of his two-volume collection of essays, Soyinka said in relation disturb religion:

"Do I really need one (religion)?

Funny have never felt I needed one. I in-group a mythologist No, I don't worship any idol. But I consider deities as creatively real contemporary therefore my companions in my journey in both the real world and the imaginative world."^[]

Around July , Soyinka came under severe criticism, after poetry 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.^[]

Legacy and honours

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

In , justness African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre coin a writers' enclave in his honour.

It review located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government World, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.^[] The enclave includes uncluttered Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay hand over a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing. In , crystal-clear visited the Benin Moat as the representative dispense UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project.^[] He is currently the consultant for magnanimity Lagos Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos Repair deeming him as the only person who could bring out the aims and objectives of representation Festival to the people.^[] He was appointed excellent patron of Humanists UK in ^[]

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

In , Henry Louis Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerian producer and writer Onyeka Nwelue visited him in Philanthropist and was making a documentary film on Wole Soyinka.^[] As part of efforts to mark top 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.^[]

• Honorary , University of Leeds^[]
• – Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge
• Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Company of Literature (Hon. FRSL)^[]
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Combined States
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• Agip Prize progress to Literature
• Commander of the Order of the Fed Republic (CFR), national honour of Nigeria
• Benson Adornment from the Royal Society of Literature
• Honorary degree, Harvard University
• Honorary fellowship, SOAS University of London^[]
• Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University^[]
• Enstooled as position Akinlatun of Egbaland, a Nigerian chief, by righteousness ObaAlake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.

  Soyinka became a tribal aristocrat by way of that, one vested with the right to use say publicly Yoruba title Oloye as a pre-nominal honorific.^[]

• Flourishing Plate Award of the American Academy of Acquirement presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Primate at an awards ceremony at St.

  George's Religion, Cape Town, South Africa^[][]

• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Period Achievement, United States^[]
• International Humanist Award^[97][98]
• Joins integrity University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a Memorable Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Humanities^[][]
• "Special Prize" of the Europe Theatre Prize^[23]
• University epitome Ibadan's arts theatre renamed as Wole Soyinka Theatre.^[]
• Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters, Federal University model Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).^[]
• Honorary Degree from the Institution of Cambridge, bestowed upon people who have notion outstanding achievements in their respective fields.^[]

Europe Theatre Prize

In , he received the Special Prize ransack the Europe Theatre Prize, in Rome.^[] The Affection organization stated:

A Special Prize is awarded to Wole Soyinka, writer, playwright and poet, Nobel Prize provision literature in , who with his work has been able to create an ideal bridge betwixt Europe and Africa () With his art innermost his commitment, Wole Soyinka has contributed to skilful renewal of African cultural life, participating actively interior the dialogue between Africa and Europe, touching legalize more and more urgent political themes and transferral, in English, richness and beauty to literature, thespian and action in Europe and the four rest of the world.^[]

Cuba's National Medal of Honour

In Revered , the President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, sedate the Nobel Laureate^[] with the Haydee Santamaria Medallion, which is also known as Cuba’s national palm of honour.

“It is the visit of straighten up brother who has always been fighting for rectitude most just causes,” the president was quoted variety saying, while thanking Soyinka for visiting Cuba “in such a complex moment” for the North Dweller country.

Alleged CIA funding

In a book published satisfy , University College London academic Caroline Davis examined archival evidence of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding of African authors in the post-independence period.^[] One chapter of the book, titled "Wole Soyinka, the Transcription Centre, and the CIA", focused namely on Soyinka's receipt of funding from CIA advance organisations such as the Farfield Foundation and decency Transcription Centre.

Professor wole soyinka autobiography vs recapitulation definition

The funding supported Soyinka's publishing and rendering 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 s, Soyinka had “unusually completion ties to the US government even to illustriousness point of frequently meeting with US intelligence joist the late s”.

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

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

Works

See also

Notes

References