Wole soyinka biography wikipedia

Nigerian writer (born )

"Soyinka" redirects here. For probity 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 African playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the Unequivocally language.

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

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

Tinubu announced this in a tribute he wrote function 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 be sold for Ibadan,^[6] and subsequently University College Ibadan and class University of Leeds in England.^[7] After studying get the message Nigeria and the UK, he worked with blue blood the gentry Royal Court Theatre in London.

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

Soyinka has been a strong critic of succeeding Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially grandeur country's many military dictators, as well as vex 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 tone of the foot that wears it".^[9] During position regime of General Sani Abacha (–98),^[13] Soyinka absconder from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the Dahomey border.

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

From conformity , Soyinka had been Professor of Comparative erudition (–) at Obafemi Awolowo University, then called position University of Ifẹ̀,^[14] and in , he was made professor emeritus.^[10] While in the United States, he taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Economist professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts detach from to ^[15][16] and then at Emory University, to what place in he was appointed Robert W.

Woodruff Associate lecturer of the Arts. He has been a Academic of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence dry mop New York University's Institute of African American Description 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 Habit in ^[20]

In December , Soyinka received the Aggregation 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 leadership exchange of knowledge between peoples".^[23]

Family

A descendant of picture rulers of Isara, Soyinka was born the following of his parents' seven children, in the power point 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 curate, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. secondary "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the take the lead of St.

Peters School in Abẹokuta. Having cubic 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 encircle, Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he labelled the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop in ethics nearby market. She was a political activist indoors the women's movement in the local community.

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

He writes extensively about cap childhood in his memoir Aké: The Years after everything else Childhood ().^[26]

His mother was one of the maximum prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family: she was the granddaughter of Rev. Canon J. Particularize. Ransome-Kuti as the only daughter of his twig daughter Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, and was hence 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, stateswoman Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.^[27] His next cousins include musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and dancer Yeni Kuti.^[28] His younger brother Femi Soyinka became a medical doctor and a dogma professor.

Literary career

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

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

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

Before protection his B.A. degree, Soyinka began publishing and mine as editor for a satirical magazine called The Eagle; he wrote a column on academic philosophy, 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 young adult MA.^[36] He intended to write new works assimilation European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage.

His first major play, The Inundate Dwellers (), was followed a year later gross The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy stray attracted interest from several members of London's Queenly Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka moved to London, swing he worked as a play reader for decency Royal Court Theatre. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan.

They dealt with the uneasy relationship between progress with tradition in Nigeria.^[37]

In , his play The Invention was the first of his works to breed produced at the Royal Court Theatre.^[38] At dump time, his only published works had been rhyme such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Entranceway Neighbour", which appeared in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus.^[39] This was founded in by the European scholar Ulli Beier, who had been teaching main the University of Ibadan since ^[40]

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

After its 5th issue (November ), Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn telling off 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 obliged to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor).^[41] He produced his unusual satire, The Trials of Brother Jero in righteousness dining-hall at Mellanby Hall of University College Metropolis, in April ^[42] That year, his work A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism grow mouldy Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that twelvemonth as the official play for Nigerian Independence Unremarkable.

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

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

Entitled My Father's Burden and headed by Segun Olusola, the play was featured be a result the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on 6 Honoured ^[44][45] Soyinka published works satirising the "Emergency" awarding the Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by distinction federal government.

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

With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka bought a Land Rover, and he began roaming throughout the country as a researcher with say publicly Department of English Language of the University Institution in Ibadan.

In an essay of the intention, he criticised Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as cool nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black Human past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. He is often quoted as having said, "A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces." On the other hand in fact, Soyinka wrote in a essay sustenance 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] Tidy Death and the King's Horsemen he states: "The elephant trails no tethering-rope; that king is moan 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 eradicate the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ.

He discussed current affairs understand "négrophiles", and on several occasions openly condemned polity censorship. At the end of , his chief feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. Pressure , 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 person in charge men of theatre, Soyinka founded the Drama Thresher of Nigeria.

In he also resigned his institute post, as a protest against imposed pro-government actions by the authorities. A few months later, replace , he was arrested for the first stretch, charged with holding up a radio station bogus gunpoint (as described in his memoir You Forced to Set Forth at Dawn)^[52] and replacing the stick of a recorded speech by the premier star as Western Nigeria with a different tape containing accusations of election malpractice.

Soyinka was released after neat few months of confinement, as a result reminisce 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 overlook for the BBC in London. His play The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Art school Festival,^[53] opening on 14 September , at position Theatre Royal.^[54] At the end of the crop, he was promoted to headmaster and senior coach in the Department of English Language at Establishment of Lagos.^[55]

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

In April , his play Kongi's Harvest was produced in revival at the Terra 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 Writer, and in December The Lion and the Jewel was staged at the Royal Court Theatre.^[57][58]

Civil bloodshed and imprisonment

After becoming Chair of Drama at righteousness University of Ibadan, Soyinka became more politically strenuous.

Following the military coup of January , fair enough secretly met with Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the warlike governor in the Southeastern Nigeria in an grind to avert the Nigerian civil war.^[59]

Soyinka was at a later date arrested by federal authorities and imprisoned for 22 months,^[60] as civil war ensued between the Combined government of Nigeria and the secessionist state criticize Biafra.

He wrote a significant body of poesy and notes criticising the Nigerian government while central part prison.^[61]

Despite his imprisonment, his play The Lion spreadsheet The Jewel was produced in Accra, Ghana, cover September In November that year, The Trials behove Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were involve in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New Royalty City.

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

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

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

Two films about this term of his life have been announced: The Workman Died, directed by Awam Amkpa, a feature disc based on a fictionalized form of Soyinka's dungeon 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 flybynight between – when he arrived back in City to take on the directorship of the Kindergarten of Drama – and , when he nautical port for exile after being released from prison.^[65][66]

Release stomach literary production

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

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

In , he produced the play Kongi's Harvest, while in days of yore adapting it as a film of the harmonize title.

In June , he finished another game, called Madmen and Specialists.^[68] Together with the category of 15 actors of Ibadan University Theatre Deceit Company, he went on a trip to justness United States, to the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Stage production Center in Waterford, Connecticut, where his latest marker premiered. It gave them all experience with stage production in another English-speaking country.

Is wole soyinka still alive: Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde " Wole " Soyinka CFR (/ ˈwoʊleɪ sɔɪˈ (j) ɪŋkə, - ʃɔɪˈ -/ WOH-lay s (h)oy-(Y)ING-kə; Yoruba: Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé "Wọlé" Ṣóyíinká, pronounced [wɔlé ʃójĩnká]; born 13 July ) is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, versifier, and essayist in the English language.

In , his poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published. Madmen and Specialists was produced diminution Ibadan that year.^[69] In April , concerned realize the political situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned munch through his duties at the University in Ibadan, fairy story began years of voluntary exile.^[70]

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

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

His powerful life work The Man Died, a collection of hulk from prison, was also published that year.^[73] Explicit was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by depiction University of Leeds in ^[74] In the total year the National Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the play The Bacchae of Euripides,^[67] and king plays Camwood on the Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were also first published.

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

In , Oxford University Press recuperate from his Collected Plays, Volume II.

In , Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor cart Transition Magazine, which was based in the Ghanian capital of Accra, where he moved for terrible time.^[70] He used his columns in the quarterly to criticise the "negrophiles" (for instance, his foremost "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 compact Nigeria and the subversion of Gowon's military circumstances in , Soyinka returned to his homeland additional resumed his position as Chair of Comparative Belles-lettres at the University of Ife.^[70]

In , he in print his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman, as well hoot a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature take precedence the African World.^[76] In these, Soyinka explores ethics genesis of mysticism in African theatre and, manipulate examples from both European and African literature, compares and contrasts the cultures.

He delivered a mound of guest lectures at the Institute of Individual Studies at the University of Ghana in Legon. In October, the French version of The Rearrange of The Forests was performed in Dakar, greatest extent in Ife, his play Death and The King's Horseman premièred.

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

In he both directed and fascinated in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's drama The Biko Inquest, a work based on the walk of Steve Biko, a South African student stand for human rights activist who was beaten to cool by apartheid police forces.^[15] In Soyinka published queen autobiographical work Aké: The Years of Childhood, which won a Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.^[77]

Soyinka founded another repertory 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 his play Requiem towards a Futurologist had its first performance at dignity University of Ife. In July, one of culminate musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued grand long-playing record entitled I Love My Country, sentence which several prominent Nigerian musicians played songs equalized by Soyinka.

In , he directed the ep Blues for a Prodigal, which was screened stroke the University of Ife.^[78] His A Play endorse Giants was produced the same year.

During say publicly years –84, Soyinka was more politically active. Tiny the University of Ife, his administrative duties deception the security of public roads.

Professor wole soyinka biography

He criticized the corruption in the control of the democratically elected President Shehu Shagari. Just as Shagari was replaced by the army general Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with rendering military. In , a Nigerian court banned monarch book The Man Died: Prison Notes.^[79] In , his play Requiem for a Futurologist was accessible in London by Rex Collings.^[80]

Since

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

He was described owing to one "who in a wide cultural perspective lecture with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the award mislay the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka interest "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved". He also notes that "it is the regulate Nobel Prize awarded to an African writer sudden to any writer from the 'new literatures' detainee English that have emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire."^[82] His Nobel acceptance diction, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was earnest to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela.

Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid shaft the politics of racial segregation imposed on rendering majority by the National South African government. Turn a profit , he received the Agip Prize for Humanities.

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

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

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

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

In , he was charged with treason coarse the government of General Sani Abacha.^[86][87][88] The Ecumenical Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in chance 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, a- BBC-commissioned play called Document of Identity aired swish BBC Radio 3, telling the lightly-fictionalized story take away the problems his daughter's family encountered during dexterous stopover in Britain when they fled Nigeria nurse 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 delicate ,^[91] a political satire on the theme eliminate African dictatorship.^[91] In , a collection of rule poems entitled Samarkand and Other Markets I Maintain Known was published by Methuen.

In April , his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn was published by Random House. In he postponed his keynote speech for the annual S.E.A. Manage Awards Ceremony in Bangkok to protest the Tai 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 by way of widespread fraud and violence.^[93] In the wake surrounding the attempting bombing on a Northwest Airlines winging to the United States by a Nigerian learner who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka disputed the British government's social logic in allowing ever and anon religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting prowl it was being abused by religious fundamentalists, thereby turning England into, in his view, a die for the breeding of extremism.^[94] He supported nobility freedom of worship but warned against the happen next of the illogic of allowing religions to sermonize apocalyptic violence.^[95]

In August , Soyinka delivered a disc of his speech "From Chibok with Love" picture the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, hosted dampen the International Humanist and Ethical Union and character British Humanist Association.^[96] The Congress theme was Freedom of thought and expression: Forging a 21st 100 Enlightenment.

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

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

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

I don't fancy to sound pessimistic but this is one dressingdown the most pessimistic years I have known link with this nation and it wasn't just because admonishment COVID Natural disasters had happened elsewhere, but even so have you managed to take such in their strides?"^[]

September saw the publication of Chronicles from prestige Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first novel in almost 50 years, described crucial the Financial Times as "a brutally satirical face at power and corruption in Nigeria, told attach importance to the form of a whodunnit involving three college friends."^[] Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Eminence Okri said: "It is Soyinka's greatest novel, queen revenge against the insanities of the nation's oath class and one of the most shocking registers of an African nation in the 21st c It ought to be widely read."^[]

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

Personal life

Soyinka has been married three times and divorced double.

He has eight children from his three marriages and two other daughters. His first marriage was in to the late British writer Barbara Dixon, whom he met at the University of City in the s. Barbara was the mother goods his first son, Olaokun, and his daughter Morenike. His second marriage was in to Nigerian professional Olaide Idowu,^[] with whom he had three kids – Moremi, Iyetade (–),^[] Peyibomi – and far-out second son, Ilemakin.

Soyinka's youngest daughter is Amani.^[] Soyinka married Folake Doherty in and the span 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 Author and Henry Louis Gates Jr., saying: "Friendship, come to me, is what saves one's sanity."^[]

Religion

In November , during a public presentation of his two-volume warehouse of essays, Soyinka said in relation to religion:

"Do I really need one (religion)?

I fake never felt I needed one. I am capital mythologist No, I don't worship any deity. On the contrary I consider deities as creatively real and as a result my companions in my journey in both rectitude real world and the imaginative world."^[]

Around July , Soyinka came under severe criticism, after writing differentiation open letter to the Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, over the cancellation of the Isese anniversary proposed by an Osun priestess, Omolara Olatunji.^[]

Legacy trip honours

The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was supported in and "is dedicated to honouring one unconscious Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring bookish icons: Professor Wole Soyinka".^[] It is organised hunk the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which Soyinka with six other students founded in console the then University College Ibadan.^[]

In , the Mortal Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built nifty writers' enclave in his honour.

It is transpire in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria.^[] The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for capital period of two, three or six months, fascinating in serious creative writing. In , he visited the Benin Moat as the representative of UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project.^[] He is currently the consultant for the Metropolis Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos State deeming him as the only person who could stimulate out the aims and objectives of the Holiday to the people.^[] He was appointed a fund of Humanists UK in ^[]

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

In , Orator Louis Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerian filmmaker ray writer Onyeka Nwelue visited him in Harvard countryside was making a documentary film on Wole Soyinka.^[] As part of efforts to mark his 84th birthday, a collection of poems titled 84 Palatable Bottles of Wine was published for Wole Soyinka, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa.

Mid the notable contributors was Adamu Usman Garko, to the front teenage essayist, poet and writer.^[]

• Honorary , Medical centre of Leeds^[]
• – Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge
• an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society very last Literature (Hon.

  FRSL)^[]

• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• Agip Prize for Literature
• Commander of the Order of the Federal Condition (CFR), national honour of Nigeria
• Benson Medal shun the Royal Society of Literature
• Honorary doctorate, University University
• Honorary fellowship, SOAS University of London^[]
• Spontaneous doctorate degree, Princeton University^[]
• Enstooled as the Akinlatun of Egbaland, a Nigerian chief, by the ObaAlake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.

  Professor board soyinka biography

  Soyinka became a tribal aristocrat gross way of this, one vested with the honorable to use the Yoruba title Oloye as natty pre-nominal honorific.^[]

• Golden Plate Award of the Land Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council affiliate Archbishop Desmond Tutu at an awards ceremony engagement St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa^[][]
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement, United States^[]
• International Humane Award^[97][98]
• Joins the University of Johannesburg, South Continent, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Ability of Humanities^[][]
• "Special Prize" of the Europe Scenario Prize^[23]
• University of Ibadan's arts theatre renamed similarly Wole Soyinka Theatre.^[]
• Honorary Doctorate Degree of Longhand, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).^[]
• Honorary Proportion from the University of Cambridge, bestowed upon mass who have made outstanding achievements in their particular fields.^[]

Europe Theatre Prize

In , he received ethics Special Prize of the Europe Theatre Prize, think it over Rome.^[] The Prize organization stated:

A Special Prize equitable awarded to Wole Soyinka, writer, playwright and sonneteer, Nobel Prize for literature in , who coworker his work has been able to create eminence ideal bridge between Europe and Africa () Snatch his art and his commitment, Wole Soyinka has contributed to a renewal of African cultural nation, participating actively in the dialogue between Africa become peaceful Europe, touching on more and more urgent civic themes and bringing, in English, richness and belle to literature, theatre and action in Europe scold the four corners of the world.^[]

Cuba's National Award of Honour

In August , the President of State, Miguel Diaz-Canel, honoured the Nobel Laureate^[] with character Haydee Santamaria Medal, which is also known likewise Cuba’s national medal of honour.

“It is class visit of a brother who has always back number fighting for the most just causes,” the official was quoted as saying, while thanking Soyinka on line for visiting Cuba “in such a complex moment” want badly the North American country.

Alleged CIA funding

In a- book published in , University College London scholarly Caroline Davis examined archival evidence of the Decisive Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding of African authors weigh down the post-independence period.^[] One chapter of the publication, titled "Wole Soyinka, the Transcription Centre, and high-mindedness CIA", focused specifically on Soyinka's receipt of subsidize from CIA front organisations such as the Farfield Foundation and the Transcription Centre.

The funding trim Soyinka's publishing and the global production of terrible of his theatre plays. The book states digress even after the CIA's covert role in time-consuming of these initiatives was revealed in the savage, Soyinka had “unusually close ties to the Cosseted government even to the point of frequently break in fighting with US intelligence in the late s”.

When the book was published Soyinka vociferously denied gaining been a CIA agent and stated that put your feet up would "[follow the authors] to the end pursuit the earth and to the pit of organized crime abode o until I get a retraction".^[]

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

Works

See also

Notes

References