Wole soyinka famous works

Nigerian writer (born )

"Soyinka" redirects here. For righteousness 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 Candidly language.

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

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

Tinubu announced this in a tribute he wrote involving 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 suspend Ibadan,^[6] and subsequently University College Ibadan and authority University of Leeds in England.^[7] After studying livestock Nigeria and the UK, he worked with nobleness Royal Court Theatre in London.

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

Soyinka has been a strong critic of in a row Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially honesty country's many military dictators, as well as cover up 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 blanch of the foot that wears it".^[9] During magnanimity regime of General Sani Abacha (–98),^[13] Soyinka runaway from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the Dahomey border.

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

From knock off , Soyinka had been Professor of Comparative scholarship (–) at Obafemi Awolowo University, then called leadership 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 stick up to ^[15][16] and then at Emory University, site in he was appointed Robert W.

Woodruff Prof of the Arts. He has been a Lecturer of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence pretend New York University's Institute of African American Interaction 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 Dogma in ^[20]

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

Family

A descendant of nobleness rulers of Isara, Soyinka was born the subsequent of his parents' seven children, in the flexibility 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 pop, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. die "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the manage of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta. Having awkward family connections, the elder Soyinka was a relation of the Odemo, or King, of Isara-Remo Prophet Akinsanya, a founding father of Nigeria.

Soyinka's indolence, Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he called the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop in depiction nearby market. She was a political activist inside the women's movement in the local community. She was also Anglican. As much of the persons followed indigenous Yorùbá religious tradition, Soyinka grew regarding in a religious atmosphere of syncretism, with influences from both cultures.

He was raised in adroit religious family, attending church services and singing boil the choir from an early age; however, Soyinka himself became an atheist later in life.^[24][25] Potentate father's position enabled him to get electricity at an earlier time radio at home. He writes extensively about enthrone childhood in his memoir Aké: The Years depict Childhood ().^[26]

His mother was one of the chief 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 premier daughter Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, and was then 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, statesman 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 hospital professor.

Literary career

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

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

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

Professor hurt soyinka biography Soyinka, Wole. Collected Plays. Oxford Paperbacks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, BA Call Number: Condiment C (E) Soyinka, Wole. From Zia with Love; and A Scourge of Hyacinths. A Methuen Additional Play. London: Methuen Drama, BA Call Number: Sf (F1 -- Closed Stacks -- Nobel Collection -- ) Soyinka, Wole.

Before defending his B.A. level, Soyinka began publishing and working as editor irritated a satirical magazine called The Eagle; he wrote a column on academic life, in which closure often criticised his university peers.^[35]

Early career

After graduating pick an upper second-class degree, Soyinka remained in City and began working on an MA.^[36] He willful to write new works combining European theatrical code with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage.

Fillet first major play, The Swamp Dwellers (), was followed a year later by The Lion gift the Jewel, a comedy that attracted interest exaggerate several members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Pleased, Soyinka moved to London, where he worked on account of a play reader for the Royal Court Stagecraft. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan.

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

In , his play The Invention was the lid of his works to be produced at decency Royal Court Theatre.^[38] At that time, his lone published works had been poems such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which exposed in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus.^[39] This was founded in by the German scholar Ulli Beier, who had been teaching at the University govern Ibadan since ^[40]

Soyinka received a Rockefeller Research Copartnership from University College in Ibadan, his alma mom, for research on African theatre, and he shared to Nigeria.

After its fifth issue (November ), Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn to become coeditor edify the literary periodical Black Orpheus (its name traced from a essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a preface to Anthologie de coolness nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor).^[41] He produced his new satire, The Trials of Brother Jero in the dining-hall at Mellanby Hall of University College Ibadan, in April ^[42] That year, his work A Dance of Interpretation Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that year as the legal play for Nigerian Independence Day.

On 1 Oct , it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria famous its sovereignty. The play satirizes the fledgling attraction by showing that the present is no enhanced a golden age than was the past. Too in , Soyinka established the "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", emblematic amateur acting ensemble to which he devoted great time over the next few years.^[43]

Soyinka wrote leadership first full-length play produced on Nigerian television.

Privileged My Father's Burden and directed by Segun Olusola, the play was featured on the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on 6 August ^[44][45] Soyinka promulgated works satirising the "Emergency" in the Western District of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was progressively occupied and controlled by the federal government.

Rectitude political tensions arising from recent post-colonial independence one of these days led to a military coup and civil contention (–70).^[24]

With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka bought a Disorder Rover, and he began travelling throughout the native land as a researcher with the Department of Candidly Language of the University College in Ibadan.

Look onto an essay of the time, he criticised Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as a nostalgic and undiscerning glorification of the black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernisation. He is much quoted as having said, "A tiger doesn't declare his tigritude, he pounces." But in fact, Soyinka wrote in a essay for the Horn: "the duiker will not paint 'duiker' on his good-looking back to proclaim his duikeritude; you'll know him by his elegant leap."^[46][47] In Death and excellence King's Horsemen he states: "The elephant trails rebuff tethering-rope; that king is not yet crowned who will peg an elephant."^[48]

In December , Soyinka's paper "Towards a True Theater" was published in Transition Magazine.^[49] He began teaching with the Department endorse English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ.

He discussed current affairs with "négrophiles", and loom several occasions openly condemned government censorship. At excellence end of , his first feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. In , his whole The Interpreters, "a complex but also vividly picture novel",^[50] was published in London by André Deutsch.^[51]

That December, together with scientists and men of stagecraft, Soyinka founded the Drama Association of Nigeria.

Straighten out he also resigned his university post, as well-organized protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the ministry. A few months later, in , he was arrested for the first time, charged with period of office up a radio station at gunpoint (as designated in his memoir You Must Set Forth readily obtainable Dawn)^[52] and replacing the tape of a factual speech by the premier of Western Nigeria peer a different tape containing accusations of election dereliction.

Soyinka was released after a few months misplace confinement, as a result of protests by depiction international community of writers. This same year misstep wrote two more dramatic pieces: Before the Blackout and the comedy Kongi's Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio play for the BBC in London. His play The Road premiered hole London at the Commonwealth Arts Festival,^[53] opening bring up 14 September , at the Theatre Royal.^[54] Tackle the end of the year, he was promoted to headmaster and senior lecturer in the Tributary of English Language at University of Lagos.^[55]

Soyinka's governmental speeches at that time criticised the cult remove personality and government corruption in African dictatorships.

Access April , his play Kongi's Harvest was be shown in revival at the World Festival of Jet Arts in Dakar, Senegal.^[56]The Road was awarded integrity Grand Prix. In June , his play The Trials of Brother Jero was produced at leadership Hampstead Theatre Club in London, and in Dec The Lion and the Jewel was staged file the Royal Court Theatre.^[57][58]

Civil war and imprisonment

After enhancing Chair of Drama at the University of City, Soyinka became more politically active.

Following the force coup of January , he secretly met assort Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor in rank Southeastern Nigeria in an effort to avert position Nigerian civil war.^[59]

Soyinka was subsequently arrested by in alliance authorities and imprisoned for 22 months,^[60] as cultivated war ensued between the Federal government of Nigeria and the secessionist state of Biafra.

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

Despite his confinement, his play The Lion and The Jewel was produced in Accra, Ghana, in September In Nov that year, The Trials of Brother Jero put up with The Strong Breed were produced in the Borough Mews Theatre in New York City.

Soyinka additionally published a collection of his poetry, Idanre endure Other Poems, which was inspired by his homecoming to the sanctuary of the Yorùbá deity Ogun, whom he regards as his "companion" deity, kinswoman spirit, and protector.^[61]

In , the Negro Ensemble Band in New York produced Kongi's Harvest.^[62] While get done imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Yoruba a fantastical innovative by his compatriot D.

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

Two films about this period of his insect have been announced: The Man Died, directed dampen Awam Amkpa, a feature film based on trim fictionalized form of Soyinka's prison memoirs of rendering same name;^[63][64] and Ebrohimie Road, written and sure by Kola Tubosun, which takes a look contention the house where Soyinka lived between – what because he arrived back in Ibadan to take mess the directorship of the School of Drama – and , when he left for exile pinpoint being released from prison.^[65][66]

Release and literary production

In Oct , when the civil war came to brainchild end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and on the subject of political prisoners were freed.^[43] For the first passive months after his release, Soyinka stayed at copperplate friend's farm in southern France, where he hunted solitude.

He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (), a reworking of the Pentheus myth.^[67] He in a minute published in London a book of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the end of the class, he returned to his office as Chair jump at Drama at Ibadan.

In , he produced character play Kongi's Harvest, while simultaneously adapting it gorilla a film of the same title.

In June , he finished another play, called Madmen concentrate on Specialists.^[68] Together with the group of 15 colouring of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the United States, stay in the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center in Metropolis, Connecticut, where his latest play premiered. It gave them all experience with theatrical production in choice English-speaking country.

In , his poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published. Madmen sit Specialists was produced in Ibadan that year.^[69] Pulse April , concerned about the political situation worry Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at magnanimity University in Ibadan, and began years of discretionary exile.^[70]

Soyinka travelled to Paris, France, to take honourableness lead role as Patrice Lumumba, the murdered control Prime Minister of the Republic of the River, in Joan Littlewood's May production of Murderous Angels, Conor Cruise O'Brien's play about the Congo Crisis.^[15][71] In July in Paris, excerpts from Soyinka's beefy play The Dance of The Forests were performed.^[72]

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

His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection of notes from prison, was additionally published that year.^[73] He was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds small fry ^[74] In the same year the National Drama, London, commissioned and premiered the play The Bacchae of Euripides,^[67] and his plays Camwood on magnanimity Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were also first publicized.

From to , Soyinka spent time on accurate studies.^{[clarification needed]} He spent a year as expert visiting fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge^[75] (–74)^[15] endure wrote Death and the King's Horseman, which confidential its first reading at Churchill College.

In , Oxford University Press issued his Collected Plays, Album II.

In , Soyinka was promoted to significance position of editor for Transition Magazine, which was based in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, to what place he moved for some time.^[70] He used queen columns in the magazine to criticise the "negrophiles" (for instance, his article "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics swallow Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes.

He protested against high-mindedness military junta of Idi Amin in Uganda.

After the political turnover in Nigeria and honourableness subversion of Gowon's military regime in , Soyinka returned to his homeland and resumed his dress as Chair of Comparative Literature at the Hospital of Ife.^[70]

In , he published his poetry storehouse Ogun Abibiman, as well as a collection foothold essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World.^[76] In these, Soyinka explores the genesis of belief in African theatre and, using examples from both European and African literature, compares and contrasts nobleness cultures.

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

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

Feigned he both directed and acted in Jon Solon and Norman Fenton's drama The Biko Inquest, unornamented work based on the life of Steve Biko, a South African student and human rights devotee who was beaten to death by apartheid 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 primacy Guerrilla Unit.

Its goal was to work have under surveillance local communities in analysing their problems and make express some of their grievances in dramatic sketches. In his play Requiem for a Futurologist esoteric its first performance at the University of Obliging. In July, one of his musical projects, integrity Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record favoured I Love My Country, on which several obvious Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka.

Overfull , he directed the film Blues for uncut Prodigal, which was screened at the University bring into play Ife.^[78] His A Play of Giants was surface the same year.

During the years –84, Soyinka was more politically active. At the University own up Ife, his administrative duties included the security an assortment of public roads.

He criticized the corruption in grandeur government of the democratically elected President Shehu Shagari. When Shagari was replaced by the army prevailing Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds restore the military. In , a Nigerian court criminal his book The Man Died: Prison Notes.^[79] Hobble , 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 angle and with poetic overtones fashions the drama be the owner of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the confer of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and extremely deserved". He also notes that "it is class first Nobel Prize awarded to an African author or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the previous colonies of the British Empire."^[82] His Nobel journey 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 stake the politics of racial segregation imposed on primacy majority by the National South African government.

Wole soyinka challenges in life: Wole Soyinka (born Akinwande Ouwole “Wole” Soyinka on July 13, , Abeokuta, Nigeria) is a Nigerian playwright and political extremist who famously won the Nobel Prize in Erudition in

In , he received the Agip Prize for Literature.

In , his collection interrupt poems Mandela's Earth, and Other Poems was obtainable, while in Nigeria another collection of essays, elite Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature turf Culture, appeared. In the same year, Soyinka universal the position of Professor of African Studies mushroom Theatre at Cornell University.^[83] In , a 3rd novel, inspired by his father's intellectual circle, Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay, appeared.

In July decency BBC African Service transmitted his radio play A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year () in Siena (Italy), his play From Zia information flow Love had its premiere.^[84] Both works are development bitter political parodies, based on events that took place in Nigeria in the s.

In Soyinka was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard Foundation. The following year, another part of his life appeared: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: –). In , his play, The Beatification of Earth Boy, was published. In October , he was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion method African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, public relations and communication.^[41]

In November , Soyinka fled from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the border with Benin,^[27] and then went to the United States.^[85] Pride , his book The Open Sore of trim Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, was first published.

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

Turn this way same year, a BBC-commissioned play called Document returns Identity aired on BBC Radio 3, telling righteousness lightly-fictionalized story of the problems his daughter's affinity encountered during a stopover in Britain when they fled Nigeria for the US in ; quip son, Oseoba Airewele was born in Luton current became a stateless person.^[9]

Soyinka's play King Baabu premièred in Lagos in ,^[91] a political satire purchase the theme of African dictatorship.^[91] In , far-out collection of his poems entitled Samarkand and Badger Markets I Have Known was published by Methuen.

In April , his memoir You Must Locate Forth at Dawn was published by Random Detached house. In he cancelled his keynote speech for dignity annual S.E.A. Write Awards Ceremony in Bangkok criticize protest the Thai military's successful coup against loftiness government.^[92]

In April , Soyinka called for the recall of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread fraud and violence.^[93] Keep in check the wake of the attempting bombing on shipshape and bristol fashion Northwest Airlines flight to the United States soak a Nigerian student who had become radicalised bland Britain, Soyinka questioned the British government's social brains in allowing every religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting that it was being abused vulgar religious fundamentalists, thereby turning England into, in coronate view, a cesspit for the breeding of extremism.^[94] He supported the freedom of worship but warned against the consequence of the illogic of conj albeit religions to preach apocalyptic violence.^[95]

In August , Soyinka delivered a recording of his speech "From Chibok with Love" to the World Humanist Congress contain Oxford, hosted by the International Humanist and Upright Union and the British Humanist Association.^[96] The Period theme was Freedom of thought and expression: Effort a 21st Century Enlightenment.

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

Soyinka opposes though Fulani herdsmen the ability to graze their forage on open land in southern, Christian-dominated Nigeria abstruse believes these herdsmen should be declared terrorists survive enable the restriction of their movements.^[99]

In December , Soyinka described as the most challenging year unite the nation's history, saying: "With the turbulence think it over characterised year , and as activities wind let down, the mood has been repugnant and very ban.

I don't want to sound pessimistic but that is one of the most pessimistic years Beside oneself have known in this nation and it wasn't just because of COVID Natural disasters had precedent elsewhere, but how have you managed to view such in their strides?"^[]

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

It ought to be publicly read."^[]

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

Personal life

Soyinka has been married three earlier and divorced twice.

He has eight children escaping his three marriages and two other daughters. Potentate first marriage was in to the late Nation writer Barbara Dixon, whom he met at nobility University of Leeds in the s. Barbara was the mother of his first son, Olaokun, enjoin his daughter Morenike. His second marriage was occupy to Nigerian librarian Olaide Idowu,^[] with whom purify had three daughters – Moremi, Iyetade (–),^[] Peyibomi – and a second son, Ilemakin.

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Soyinka's youngest daughter give something the onceover Amani.^[] Soyinka married Folake Doherty in and honesty 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 sort out religion:

"Do I really need one (religion)?

Hilarious have never felt I needed one. I stem a mythologist No, I don't worship any graven image. But I consider deities as creatively real become more intense 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 only of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and pliant literary icons: Professor Wole Soyinka".^[] It is unionized by the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which Soyinka with six other students founded propitious at the then University College Ibadan.^[]

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

It admiration located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Balance, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.^[] The enclave includes exceptional Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay usher a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing. In , appease visited the Benin Moat as the representative supplementary UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project.^[] He is currently the consultant for say publicly Lagos Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos Realm deeming him as the only person who could bring out the aims and objectives of justness Festival to the people.^[] He was appointed uncomplicated patron of Humanists UK in ^[]

In , high-mindedness collection Crucible of the Ages: Essays in Infamy of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochwuku Promise, was published by Bookcraft in Nigeria and Ayebia Clarke Publishing in decency UK, with tributes and contributions from Nadine Author, 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 University 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 Community of Literature (Hon.

  FRSL)^[]

• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Concerted States
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• Agip Prize collaboration Literature
• Commander of the Order of the Federated Republic (CFR), national honour of Nigeria
• Benson Honor from the Royal Society of Literature
• Honorary degree, Harvard University
• Honorary fellowship, SOAS University of London^[]
• Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University^[]
• Enstooled as description Akinlatun of Egbaland, a Nigerian chief, by loftiness ObaAlake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.

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

• Yellowish Plate Award of the American Academy of Feat presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Skirt at an awards ceremony at St.

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

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

Europe Theatre Prize

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

A Special Prize is awarded to Wole Soyinka, writer, playwright and poet, Nobel Prize cherish literature in , who with his work has been able to create an ideal bridge amidst Europe and Africa () With his art countryside his commitment, Wole Soyinka has contributed to fine renewal of African cultural life, participating actively replace the dialogue between Africa and Europe, touching towards the rear more and more urgent political themes and transfer, in English, richness and beauty to literature, music hall and action in Europe and the four pause of the world.^[]

Cuba's National Medal of Honour

In Esteemed , the President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, venerable the Nobel Laureate^[] with the Haydee Santamaria Trim, which is also known as Cuba’s national badge of honour.

“It is the visit of spiffy tidy up brother who has always been fighting for class most just causes,” the president was quoted despite the fact that saying, while thanking Soyinka for visiting Cuba “in such a complex moment” for the North English country.

Alleged CIA funding

In a book published hassle , 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 that is to say on Soyinka's receipt of funding from CIA gloss organisations such as the Farfield Foundation and prestige Transcription Centre.

The funding supported Soyinka's publishing bracket the global production of some of his thespian plays. The book states that even after prestige CIA's covert role in some of these initiatives was revealed in the s, Soyinka had “unusually close ties to the US government even command somebody to the point of frequently meeting with US faculties in the late s”.

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

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

Works

See also

Notes

References