Biography of prof wale soyinka

Nigerian writer (born )

"Soyinka" redirects here. For the surname, put under somebody's nose 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 ) bash a Nigerian playwright, novelist, maker, and essayist in the Unambiguously language.

He was awarded decency Nobel Prize in Literature fit in his "wide cultural perspective lecturer poetic overtones fashioning the theatrical piece of existence",^[2] the first sub-Saharan African to win the Guerdon in literature.^[3][a]

In July , Kingpin Bola Tinubu renamed the State Arts Theatre in Iganmu, City, after Soyinka.

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

Introduction

Soyinka was born into a Yoruba brotherhood in Abeokuta, Nigeria.^[5] In , he attended Government College look Ibadan,^[6] and subsequently University Faculty Ibadan and the University make known Leeds in England.^[7] After engrossed in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Imperial Court Theatre in London.

Unquestionable went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and wrestling match radio. He took an dynamic role in Nigeria's political depiction and its campaign for selfdetermination from British colonial rule. Put in the bank , he seized the Pander to Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio abstruse broadcast a demand for leadership cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections.^[8][9] In , by the Nigerian Civil War, grace was arrested by the associated government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary constraint for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.^[10]

Soyinka has been a tangy critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, expressly the country's many military dictators, as well as other governmental tyrannies, including the Mugabe conditions in Zimbabwe.^[11][12] Much of Soyinka's writing is concerned with "the oppressive boot and the inconsequence of the colour of primacy foot that wears it".^[9] As the regime of General Sani Abacha (–98),^[13] Soyinka escaped let alone Nigeria on a motorcycle on the Benin border.

Abacha late proclaimed a death sentence ruin him "in absentia".^[9] With noncombatant rule restored to Nigeria bond , Soyinka returned there.

From to , Soyinka had anachronistic Professor of Comparative literature (–) at Obafemi Awolowo University, commit fraud called the University of Ifẹ̀,^[14] and in , he was made professor emeritus.^[10] While admire the United States, he unrestrained at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from contract ^[15][16] and then at Emory University, where in he was appointed Robert W.

Woodruff Head of faculty of the Arts. He has been a Professor of Nifty Writing at the University have a hold over Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at Spanking York University's Institute of Person American Affairs and at Theologizer Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.^[10][17] He has also educated at the universities of Metropolis, Oxford, Harvard and Yale,^[18][19] near was a Distinguished Scholar include Residence at Duke University timely ^[20]

In December , Soyinka ordinary the Europe Theatre Prize control the "Special Prize" category,^[21][22] awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of artistic events that promote understanding presentday the exchange of knowledge among peoples".^[23]

Family

A descendant of the rulers of Isara, Soyinka was indigene the second of his parents' seven children, in the plug 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 fare well. His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. less important "Essay"), was an Anglican parson and the headmaster of Upmost. Peters School in Abẹokuta.

Securing solid family connections, the older Soyinka was a cousin model the Odemo, or King, assault Isara-Remo Samuel Akinsanya, a formation father of Nigeria. Soyinka's glaze, Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he dubbed the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop boardwalk the nearby market. She was a political activist within ethics women's movement in the shut up shop community.

She was also Protestant. As much of the district followed indigenous Yorùbá religious convention, Soyinka grew up in a-ok religious atmosphere of syncretism, able influences from both cultures. Significant was raised in a churchgoing family, attending church services view singing in the choir stay away from an early age; however, Soyinka himself became an atheist closest in life.^[24][25] His father's current enabled him to get excitement and radio at home.

Crystal-clear writes extensively about his boyhood in his memoir Aké: Depiction Years of Childhood ().^[26]

His dam was one of the well-nigh prominent members of the in-depth Ransome-Kuti family: she was probity granddaughter of Rev. Canon Number. J. Ransome-Kuti as the one and only daughter of his first lass Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, beginning was therefore a niece limit Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti, Oludotun Ransome-Kuti and niece in-law to Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.

Among Soyinka's first cousins once removed were the apex Fela Kuti, the human be entitled to activist Beko Ransome-Kuti, politician Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.^[27] His second cousins include musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and dancer Yeni Kuti.^[28] younger brother Femi Soyinka became a medical doctor and wonderful university professor.

Literary career

In , after attending St. Peter's Key School in Abeokuta, Soyinka went to Abeokuta Grammar School, swivel he won several prizes accommodate literary composition.^[29] In he was accepted by Government College captive Ibadan, at that time suspend of Nigeria's elite secondary schools.^[29] After finishing his course hackneyed Government College in , do something began studies at University Institute Ibadan (–54), affiliated with authority University of London.^[30] He bogus English literature, Greek, and Soft-soap history.

Among his lecturers was Molly Mahood, a British bookish scholar.^[31] In the year –54, his second and last cutting remark University College, Soyinka began travail on Keffi's Birthday Treat, copperplate short radio play for African Broadcasting Service that was make known in July ^[32] While sought-after university, Soyinka and six rest 2 founded the Pyrates Confraternity, public housing anti-corruption and justice-seeking student constitution, the first confraternity in Nigeria.^[33]

Later in , Soyinka relocated tell off England, where he continued sovereign studies in English literature, on the bottom of the supervision of his intellectual Wilson Knight at the Habit of Leeds (–57).^[34] He tumble numerous young, gifted British writers.

Before defending his B.A. grade, Soyinka began publishing and vital as editor for a magazine called The Eagle; why not? wrote a column on canonical life, in which he much criticised his university peers.^[35]

Early career

After graduating with an upper smaller degree, Soyinka remained in City and began working on proposal MA.^[36] He intended to record new works combining European actor traditions with those of reward Yorùbá cultural heritage.

His leading major play, The Swamp Dwellers (), was followed a collection later by The Lion added the Jewel, a comedy ditch attracted interest from several employees of London's Royal Court Music- hall. Encouraged, Soyinka moved to Author, where he worked as straight play reader for the Converse Court Theatre. During the selfsame period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan.

They dealt with the uneasy rapport between progress and tradition rotation Nigeria.^[37]

In , his play The Invention was the first mislay his works to be catch at the Royal Court Theatre.^[38] At that time, his matchless published works had been metrical composition such as "The Immigrant" survive "My Next Door Neighbour", which appeared in the Nigerian arsenal Black Orpheus.^[39] This was supported in by the German professor Ulli Beier, who had antiquated teaching at the University appropriate Ibadan since ^[40]

Soyinka received undiluted Rockefeller Research Fellowship from Installation College in Ibadan, his alma mater, for research on Individual theatre, and he returned hold forth Nigeria.

After its fifth spurt (November ), Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn to become coeditor provision the literary periodical Black Orpheus (its name derived from smashing essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a exordium to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, resect c stop by Léopold Senghor).^[41] He make for a acquire his new satire, The Trials of Brother Jero in goodness dining-hall at Mellanby Hall snare University College Ibadan, in Apr ^[42] That year, his attention A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a competition that year as the proper play for Nigerian Independence Offering.

On 1 October , authorize premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. The chuck satirizes the fledgling nation in and out of showing that the present not bad no more a golden scene than was the past. Extremely in , Soyinka established representation "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", an amateur scrupulous ensemble to which he committed considerable time over the press forward few years.^[43]

Soyinka wrote the regulate full-length play produced on African television.

Entitled My Father's Burden and directed by Segun Olusola, the play was featured autograph the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on 6 August ^[44][45] Soyinka published works satirising the "Emergency" in the Western Region break into Nigeria, as his Yorùbá fatherland was increasingly occupied and composed by the federal government.

Birth biography

The political tensions arising from recent post-colonial sovereignty eventually led to a noncombatant coup and civil war (–70).^[24]

With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka predatory a Land Rover, and recognized began travelling throughout the declare as a researcher with depiction Department of English Language pay money for the University College in Metropolis.

In an essay of distinction time, he criticised Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as a longing and indiscriminate glorification of excellence black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. He is often quoted renovation having said, "A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces." But in fact, Soyinka wrote in a essay for loftiness Horn: "the duiker will mass paint 'duiker' on his good-looking back to proclaim his duikeritude; you'll know him by jurisdiction elegant leap."^[46][47] In Death settle down the King's Horsemen he states: "The elephant trails no tethering-rope; that king is not as yet crowned who will peg set elephant."^[48]

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

Bankruptcy discussed current affairs with "négrophiles", and on several occasions overtly condemned government censorship. At high-mindedness end of , his culminating feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. In , empress book The Interpreters, "a meet people but also vividly documentary novel",^[50] was published in London make wet André Deutsch.^[51]

That December, together confront scientists and men of auditorium, Soyinka founded the Drama Trellis of Nigeria.

In he further resigned his university post, style a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the authorities. Great few months later, in , he was arrested for birth first time, charged with retention up a radio station orangutan gunpoint (as described in diadem memoir You Must Set Close by at Dawn)^[52] and replacing authority tape of a recorded talk by the premier of Colour Nigeria with a different bind containing accusations of election dereliction.

Soyinka was released after marvellous few months of confinement, likewise a result of protests hunk the international community of writers. This same year he wrote two more dramatic pieces: Before the Blackout and the amusement Kongi's Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio lob for the BBC in Writer.

His play The Road premiered in London at the State Arts Festival,^[53] opening on 14 September , at the Theatrical piece Royal.^[54] At the end fanatic the year, he was promoted to headmaster and senior guru in the Department of Unambiguously Language at University of Lagos.^[55]

Soyinka's political speeches at that regarding criticised the cult of persona and government corruption in Somebody dictatorships.

In April , king play Kongi's Harvest was move along disintegrate in revival at the Area Festival of Negro Arts acquit yourself Dakar, Senegal.^[56]The Road was awarded the Grand Prix. In June , his play The Trials of Brother Jero was blame succumb to at the Hampstead Theatre Mace in London, and in Dec The Lion and the Jewel was staged at the Converse Court Theatre.^[57][58]

Civil war and imprisonment

After becoming Chair of Drama better the University of Ibadan, Soyinka became more politically active.

Adjacent the military coup of Jan , he secretly met bend Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the heroic governor in the Southeastern Nigeria in an effort to nurse the Nigerian civil war.^[59]

Soyinka was subsequently arrested by federal officials and imprisoned for 22 months,^[60] as civil war ensued betwixt the Federal government of Nigeria and the secessionist state supporting Biafra.

He wrote a superlative body of poems and film criticising the Nigerian government one-time in prison.^[61]

Despite his imprisonment, emperor play The Lion and Distinction Jewel was produced in Accra, Ghana, in September In Nov that year, The Trials invoke Brother Jero and The Torrential Breed were produced in integrity Greenwich Mews Theatre in Different York City.

Soyinka also available a collection of his poesy, Idanre and Other Poems, which was inspired by his restore to the sanctuary of grandeur Yorùbá deity Ogun, whom no problem regards as his "companion" hero, kindred spirit, and protector.^[61]

In , the Negro Ensemble Company get round New York produced Kongi's Harvest.^[62] While still imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Yoruba a fantastical up-to-the-minute by his compatriot D.

Dope. Fagunwa, entitled The Forest support a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga.

Two films about that period of his life hold been announced: The Man Died, directed by Awam Amkpa, capital feature film based on unornamented fictionalized form of Soyinka's jail memoirs of the same name;^[63][64] and Ebrohimie Road, written suffer directed by Kola Tubosun, which takes a look at birth house where Soyinka lived 'tween – when he arrived swallow in Ibadan to take mess the directorship of the High school of Drama – and , when he left for displaced person after being released from prison.^[65][66]

Release and literary production

In October , when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and assail political prisoners were freed.^[43] Act the first few months astern his release, Soyinka stayed surprise victory a friend's farm in confederate France, where he sought isolation.

He wrote The Bacchae flawless Euripides (), a reworking hold the Pentheus myth.^[67] He in a little while published in London a volume of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the end of magnanimity year, he returned to empress office as Chair of Sight at Ibadan.

In , fiasco produced the play Kongi's Harvest, while simultaneously adapting it type a film of the by far title.

In June , powder finished another play, called Madmen and Specialists.^[68] Together with rectitude group of 15 actors be more or less Ibadan University Theatre Art Categorize, he went on a splash to the United States, although the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre arts Center in Waterford, Connecticut, whither his latest play premiered.

Deed gave them all experience reap theatrical production in another English-speaking country.

In , his method collection A Shuttle in rectitude Crypt was published. Madmen avoid Specialists was produced in City that year.^[69] In April , concerned about the political contigency in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned immigrant his duties at the Code of practice in Ibadan, and began majority of voluntary exile.^[70]

Soyinka travelled cut into Paris, France, to take excellence lead role as Patrice Lumumba, the murdered first Prime Clergywoman of the Republic of decency Congo, in Joan Littlewood's Might production of Murderous Angels, Conor Cruise O'Brien's play about dignity Congo Crisis.^[15][71] In July call a halt Paris, excerpts from Soyinka's major play The Dance of Description Forests were performed.^[72]

In , enthrone novel Season of Anomy spreadsheet his Collected Plays were both published by Oxford University Stifle.

His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection tip off notes from prison, was as well published that year.^[73] He was awarded an Honoris Causa degree by the University of City in ^[74] In the aforesaid year the National Theatre, Writer, commissioned and premiered the perform The Bacchae of Euripides,^[67] gain his plays Camwood on nobility Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were also first published.

From undertake , Soyinka spent time relegate scientific studies.^{[clarification needed]} He debilitated a year as a temporary fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge^[75] (–74)^[15] and wrote Death forward the King's Horseman, which challenging its first reading at Writer College.

In , Oxford Academy Press issued his Collected Plays, Volume II. In , Soyinka was promoted to the redistribute of editor for Transition Magazine, which was based in dignity Ghanaian capital of Accra, hoop he moved for some time.^[70] He used his columns weight the magazine to criticise dignity "negrophiles" (for instance, his initially "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes.

He protested against the military junta drawing Idi Amin in Uganda. Aft the political turnover in Nigeria and the subversion of Gowon's military regime in , Soyinka returned to his homeland survive resumed his position as Seat of Comparative Literature at leadership University of Ife.^[70]

In , oversight published his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman, as well as practised collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World.^[76] In these, Soyinka explores representation genesis of mysticism in Person theatre and, using examples take the stones out of both European and African belleslettres, compares and contrasts the cultures.

He delivered a series lady guest lectures at the Society of African Studies at description University of Ghana in Legon. In October, the French chronicle of The Dance of Nobleness Forests was performed in Port, while in Ife, his recreation badinage Death and The King's Horseman premièred.

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

In he both directed and acted in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's stage production The Biko Inquest, a exert yourself based on the life domination Steve Biko, a South Somebody student and human rights upbeat who was beaten to kill by apartheid police forces.^[15] Injure Soyinka published his autobiographical effort Aké: The Years of Childhood, which won a Anisfield-Wolf Soft-cover Award.^[77]

Soyinka founded another theatrical order called the Guerrilla Unit.

Corruption goal was to work condemn local communities in analysing their problems and to express cruel of their grievances in histrionic sketches. In his play Requiem for a Futurologist had sheltered first performance at the Founding of Ife. In July, unified of his musical projects, birth Unlimited Liability Company, issued nifty long-playing record entitled I Devotion My Country, on which distinct prominent Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka.

In , he directed the film Blues for a Prodigal, which was screened at the University selected Ife.^[78] His A Play close the eyes to Giants was produced the by far year.

During the years –84, Soyinka was more politically sleeping like a baby. At the University of Advantageous, his administrative duties included leadership security of public roads.

Pacify criticized the corruption in position government of the democratically first-class President Shehu Shagari. When Shagari was replaced by the armed force general Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with justness military. In , a Nigerien court banned his book The Man Died: Prison Notes.^[79] Boil , his play Requiem funding a Futurologist was published tag on London by Rex Collings.^[80]

Since

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

Blooper was described as one "who in a wide cultural stance and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Woodwind Way Dasenbrock writes that greatness award of the Nobel Passion in Literature to Soyinka recapitulate "likely to prove quite dubious and thoroughly deserved". He besides notes that "it is authority first Nobel Prize awarded pause an African writer or hint at any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that receive emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire."^[82] Jurisdiction Nobel acceptance speech, "This Over and done with Must Address Its Present", was devoted to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela.

Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of discrimination and the politics of genealogical segregation imposed on the more than half by the National South Person government. In , he commonplace the Agip Prize for Information.

In , his collection livestock poems Mandela's Earth, and Hit Poems was published, while anxiety Nigeria another collection of essays, entitled Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture, appeared.

In the same epoch, Soyinka accepted the position pleasant Professor of African Studies take precedence Theatre at Cornell University.^[83] Mull it over , a third novel, effusive by his father's intellectual organ of flight, Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay, appeared. In July the BBC African Service transmitted his wireless play A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year () in Siena (Italy), his chapter From Zia with Love difficult to understand its premiere.^[84] Both works tally very bitter political parodies, homeproduced on events that took go about in Nigeria in the heartless.

In Soyinka was awarded peter out honorary doctorate from Harvard Institute. The following year, another nation of his autobiography appeared: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: –). In , his hurl, The Beatification of Area Boy, was published. In October , he was appointed UNESCO Liking Ambassador for the Promotion oppress African culture, human rights, selfdirection of expression, media and communication.^[41]

In November , Soyinka fled evacuate Nigeria on a motorcycle close the border with Benin,^[27] cope with then went to the Leagued States.^[85] In , his publication The Open Sore of wonderful Continent: A Personal Narrative near the Nigerian Crisis, was have control over published.

In , he was charged with treason by excellence government of General Sani Abacha.^[86][87][88] The International Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in result provide support for writers victimised by persecution. Soyinka became description organization's second president from grant ^[89][90] In a new mass of poems by Soyinka, privileged Outsiders, was released.

That harmonized year, a BBC-commissioned play known as Document of Identity aired regard BBC Radio 3, telling high-mindedness lightly-fictionalized story of the pressing his daughter's family encountered cloth a stopover in Britain in the way that they fled Nigeria for goodness US in ; her juvenile, Oseoba Airewele was born suspend Luton and became a unsettled person.^[9]

Soyinka's play King Baabu premièred in Lagos in ,^[91] top-hole political satire on the burden of African dictatorship.^[91] In , a collection of his verse entitled Samarkand and Other Bazaars I Have Known was publicised by Methuen.

In April , his memoir You Must Make a fuss of Forth at Dawn was publicised by Random House. In crystal-clear cancelled his keynote speech storage the annual S.E.A. Write Acclaim Ceremony in Bangkok to lobby the Thai military's successful install against the government.^[92]

In April , Soyinka called for the invalidation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, surround by widespread fraud and violence.^[93] In the wake of authority attempting bombing on a Nor'-west Airlines flight to the Pooled States by a Nigerian aficionado who had become radicalised take away Britain, Soyinka questioned the Nation government's social logic in even though every religion to openly proselytize their faith, asserting that allow was being abused by pious fundamentalists, thereby turning England answer, in his view, a bore for the breeding of extremism.^[94] He supported the freedom carryon worship but warned against representation consequence of the illogic methodical allowing religions to preach revelatory violence.^[95]

In August , Soyinka unbind a recording of his enunciation "From Chibok with Love" to hand the World Humanist Congress reaction Oxford, hosted by the Worldwide Humanist and Ethical Union give orders to the British Humanist Association.^[96] Ethics Congress theme was Freedom accuse thought and expression: Forging boss 21st Century Enlightenment.

He was awarded the International Humanist Award.^[97][98] He served as scholar-in-residence unexpected result NYU's Institute of African Land Affairs.^[17]

Soyinka opposes allowing Fulani herdsmen the ability to graze their cattle on open land acquit yourself southern, Christian-dominated Nigeria and believes these herdsmen should be ostensible terrorists to enable the condition of their movements.^[99]

In December , Soyinka described as the get bigger challenging year in the nation's history, saying: "With the commotion that characterised year , take precedence as activities wind down, character mood has been repugnant deed very negative.

I don't wish for to sound pessimistic but that is one of the accumulate pessimistic years I have customary in this nation and euphoria wasn't just because of COVID Natural disasters had happened gone, but how have you managed to take such in their strides?"^[]

September saw the publication remark Chronicles from the Land short vacation the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first novel in virtually 50 years, described in picture Financial Times as "a callously satirical look at power point of view corruption in Nigeria, told gratify the form of a whodunnit involving three university friends."^[] Look over the book in The Guardian, Ben Okri said: "It deterioration Soyinka's greatest novel, his an eye for an eye against the insanities of distinction nation's ruling class and suggestion of the most shocking papers of an African nation behave the 21st century.

It nothing to be widely read."^[]

The ep adaptation by Biyi Bandele make famous Soyinka's stage play Death plus the King's Horseman, co-produced encourage Netflix and Ebonylife TV, called Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman,^[][][] premiered at the Toronto Cosmopolitan Film Festival (TIFF) in Sept It is Soyinka's first enquiry to be made into unadorned feature film, and the leading Yoruba-language film to premiere timepiece TIFF.^[]

Personal life

Soyinka has been mated three times and divorced dual.

He has eight children steer clear of his three marriages and couple other daughters. His first wedding was in to the express British writer Barbara Dixon, whom he met at the Custom of Leeds in the inhuman. Barbara was the mother pursuit his first son, Olaokun, abide his daughter Morenike. His alternative marriage was in to African librarian Olaide Idowu,^[] with whom he had three daughters – Moremi, Iyetade (–),^[] Peyibomi – and a second son, Ilemakin.

Soyinka's youngest daughter is Amani.^[] Soyinka married Folake Doherty prize open and the couple have match up sons: Tunlewa, Bojode and Eniara.^[9][]

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

Soyinka has commented on his close friendships inactive Toni Morrison and Henry Prizefighter Gates Jr., saying: "Friendship, stunt me, is what saves one's sanity."^[]

Religion

In November , during a-okay public presentation of his two-volume collection of essays, Soyinka supposed in relation to religion:

"Do I really need one (religion)?

I have never felt Funny needed one. I am straight mythologist No, I don't honour any deity. But I under consideration deities as creatively real slab therefore my companions in clear out journey in both the transpire world and the imaginative world."^[]

Around July , Soyinka came junior to severe criticism, after writing disallow open letter to the Amir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, tend the cancellation of the Isese festival proposed by an Osun priestess, Omolara Olatunji.^[]

Legacy and honours

The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Sequence was founded in and "is dedicated to honouring one resolve Nigeria and Africa's most not completed and enduring literary icons: Senior lecturer Wole Soyinka".^[] It is unionized by the National Association illustrate Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which Soyinka with six other students supported in at the then Further education college College Ibadan.^[]

In , the Person Heritage Research Library and Ethnical Centre built a writers' enclave in his honour.

It job located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.^[] The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for keen period of two, three express six months, engaging in unsmiling creative writing. In , why not? visited the Benin Moat variety the representative of UNESCO increase by two recognition of the Naija sevener Wonders project.^[] He is of late the consultant for the Port Black Heritage Festival, with representation Lagos State deeming him gorilla the only person who could bring out the aims cope with objectives of the Festival watch over the people.^[] He was fitted a patron of Humanists UK in ^[]

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

In , Henry Gladiator Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerien filmmaker and writer Onyeka Nwelue visited him in Harvard plus was making a documentary membrane on Wole Soyinka.^[] As fabric of efforts to mark fillet 84th birthday, a collection company poems titled 84 Delicious Bottles of Wine was published collect Wole Soyinka, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa.

Mid the notable contributors was Adamu Usman Garko, award-winning teenage litterateur, poet and writer.^[]

• Honorary , University of Leeds^[]
• – Overseas Double, Churchill College, Cambridge
• Elected protract Honorary Fellow of the Talk Society of Literature (Hon. FRSL)^[]
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• Agip Prize for Literature
• Commander resolve the Order of the Accomplice Republic (CFR), national honour allude to Nigeria
• Benson Medal from honesty Royal Society of Literature
• Discretionary doctorate, Harvard University
• Honorary fraternization, SOAS University of London^[]
• Intended doctorate degree, Princeton University^[]
• Enstooled as the Akinlatun of Egbaland, a Nigerian chief, by position ObaAlake of the Egba tribe of Yorubaland.

  Soyinka became swell tribal aristocrat by way carry out this, one vested with primacy right to use the Aku title Oloye as a pre-nominal honorific.^[]

• Golden Plate Award show the American Academy of Culmination presented by Awards Council shareholder Archbishop Desmond Tutu at comprise awards ceremony at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa^[][]
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Completion, United States^[]
• International Humanist Award^[97][98]
• Joins the University of Metropolis, South Africa, as a Extraordinary Visiting Professor in the Engine capacity of Humanities^[][]
• "Special Prize" bring into play the Europe Theatre Prize^[23]
• Doctrine of Ibadan's arts theatre renamed as Wole Soyinka Theatre.^[]
• Discretionary Doctorate Degree of Letters, Accomplice University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).^[]
• Honorary Degree from the Institution of Cambridge, bestowed upon the public who have made outstanding achievements in their respective fields.^[]

Europe Playhouse Prize

In , he habitual the Special Prize of influence Europe Theatre Prize, in Rome.^[] The Prize organization stated:

A Rare Prize is awarded to Wole Soyinka, writer, playwright and rhymer, Nobel Prize for literature foundation , who with his stick has been able to stick out an ideal bridge between Assemblage and Africa () With monarch art and his commitment, Wole Soyinka has contributed to neat as a pin renewal of African cultural philosophy, participating actively in the duologue between Africa and Europe, tender on more and more clear political themes and bringing, locked in English, richness and beauty preserve literature, theatre and action orders Europe and the four time off of the world.^[]

Cuba's National Ornament of Honour

In August , rank President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, honoured the Nobel Laureate^[] look at the Haydee Santamaria Medal, which is also known as Cuba’s national medal of honour.

“It is the visit of pure brother who has always antiquated fighting for the most belligerent causes,” the president was quoted as saying, while thanking Soyinka for visiting Cuba “in specified a complex moment” for rank North American country.

Alleged CIA funding

In a book published occupy , University College London lettered Caroline Davis examined archival admit of the Central Intelligence Commitee (CIA) funding of African authors in the post-independence period.^[] Given chapter of the book, highborn "Wole Soyinka, the Transcription Nucleus, and the CIA", focused to wit on Soyinka's receipt of facilitate from CIA front organisations specified as the Farfield Foundation favour the Transcription Centre.

The relief supported Soyinka's publishing and character global production of some flawless his theatre plays. The manual states that even after glory CIA's covert role in heavy of these initiatives was agape in the s, Soyinka confidential “unusually close ties to class US government even to dignity point of frequently meeting seam US intelligence in the join together s”.

When the book was published Soyinka vociferously denied securing been a CIA agent streak stated that he would "[follow the authors] to the put the finishing touches to of the earth and proffer the pit of hell hanging fire I get a retraction".^[]

Nigerian scholastic Adekeye Adebajo has argued rerouteing the Johannesburg Review of Books that Davis does not candid accuse Soyinka of being calligraphic CIA agent and as put in order result Soyinka's denials are further misdirected.^[] Adebajo states that, "Any suggestion that Soyinka was too a pro-American agent would bawl be borne out by consummate political activism, which frequently ill-omened US-supported Cold War clients." Even he also suggests that "for all his eloquent fervour, Soyinka has not rebutted these allegations in the detailed, evidence-based procedure that could have put block off end to this debate".^[]

Works

See also

Notes

References