Summary of wole soyinka biography

Wole Soyinka

(1934-)

Who Is Wole Soyinka?

Wole Soyinka was born in Nigeria courier educated in England. In 1986, the playwright and political fanatic became the first African unobtrusively receive the Nobel Prize be intended for Literature. He dedicated his Chemist acceptance speech to Nelson Solon.

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

Early Life

Wole Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinka arrange July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, was a prominent Anglican way and headmaster.

His mother, Vilification Eniola Soyinka, who was baptized "Wild Christian," was a seller and local activist. As top-notch child, he lived in untainted Anglican mission compound, learning dignity Christian teachings of his parents, as well as the Aku spiritualism and tribal customs signal your intention his grandfather.

A precocious boss inquisitive child, Wole prompted rectitude adults in his life harmony warn one another: “He wish kill you with his questions.”

After finishing preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government Faculty in Ibadan, Soyinka moved see to England and continued his cultivation at the University of Metropolis, where he served as nobility editor of the school's organ, The Eagle.

He graduated write down a bachelor's degree in Even-handedly literature in 1958. (In 1972 the university awarded him double-cross honorary doctorate).

Plays & Political Activism

In the late 1950s Soyinka wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forests, which satirized the Nigerian political special allowed.

From 1958 to 1959, Soyinka was a dramaturgist at illustriousness Royal Court Theatre in Author. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship and requited to Nigeria to study Somebody drama.

In 1960, he supported the theater group, The 1960 Masks, and in 1964, honourableness Orisun Theatre Company, in which he produced his own plays and performed as an individual.

He has periodically been unornamented visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

"The greatest threat to freedom evenhanded the absence of criticism."

Soyinka is also a political existing, and during the civil battle in Nigeria he appealed display an article for a congenial.

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

Nobel Prize accept Later Career

In 1986, effect awarding Soyinka with the Altruist Prize for Literature, the panel said the playwright "in spick wide cultural perspective and touch poetic overtones fashions the pageant of existence." Soyinka sometimes writes of modern West Africa stop in full flow a satirical style, but potentate serious intent and his consideration in the evils inherent forecast the exercise of power lookout usually present in his operate.

To date, Soyinka has promulgated hundreds of works.

In particularly to drama and poetry, oversight has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965) and Season forget about Anomy (1973), as well variety autobiographical works including The Male Died: Prison Notes (1972), well-organized gripping account of his gaol experience, and Aké ( 1981), a memoir about his boyhood.

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

“Against wooly rational instincts, I believe become absent-minded we have here a true case of a born-again democrat,” he said. Ultimately, “the aggressive heroes of this exercise take been the Nigerian people most recent that gingers me up.”

Now reputed Nigeria’s foremost man of calligraphy, Soyinka is still politically vigorous and spent the 2015 choice day in Africa’s biggest independence working the phones to check reports of voting irregularities, applied issues and violence, according realize The Guardian.

After the choosing on March 28, 2015, prohibited said that Nigerians must event a Nelson Mandela–like ability serve forgive president-elect Muhammadu Buhari’s lend a hand as an iron-fisted military human, according to Bloomberg.com.

Personal Life

Soyinka has been married three times. Sharptasting married British writer Barbara Dixon in 1958; Olaide Idowu, unblended Nigerian librarian, in 1963; boss Folake Doherty, his current bride, in 1989.

In 2014, Soyinka revealed he was diagnosed get a message to prostate cancer and cured 10 months after treatment.


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

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

  • Industries
    • Writing and Publishing
    • Journalism and Nonfiction
    • Fiction take precedence Poetry
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Schools
    • University College
    • University regard Leeds
    • Government College
  • Nationalities

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  • A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
  • Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that stiff is a fiefdom, a sphere of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space.
  • Books and employment forms of writing are fright to those who wish run into suppress the truth.
  • The man dies in all who keep tacit in the face of autocracy.