Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (Yoruba: Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka, born July 13, 1934) is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He made extraordinary achievements in drama creation and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, becoming the first African to win the prize. In 1934, Soyinka was born into a poor family of the Egba tribe of the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria. His birthplace was Abeokuta. He first received his primary education in Abeokuta and his secondary education at Government College, Ibadan. Finally, he entered University College, Ibadan (1953-1954) and obtained a bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Leeds, England. After graduation, he first worked at the Royal Court Theater in London as a script proofreader, and then returned to Nigeria to study African drama. He has taught at the University of Lagos, the University of Ibadan and the University of Ife. (In 1975, he became a professor of comparative literature.) Soyinka has always been active in Nigerian politics. During the 1967 Nigerian civil war, he was arrested and imprisoned by the federal government led by Yakubu Gowon and held in solitary confinement because he was accused of breaking the peace between the warring parties. While in prison, he composed many poems, all of which were later published in Poems from Prison. Later, due to the attention and pressure from the international community, he was released after 22 months of imprisonment. His experiences in prison were eventually documented in The Man Died: Prison Notes. In addition, Soyinka is also known for his bold outspokenness. He often criticizes Nigeria's administrative departments and also opposes tyranny in other countries around the world, including the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe and the 1989 Tiananmen Incident by Deng Xiaoping's government in the People's Republic of China. Many of his works have clear arguments against dictatorship. These radical remarks often put him in danger, but they also greatly increased his reputation. During the reign of Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha (1993-1998), Soyinka was forced to leave Nigeria and lived in a foreign country.