Professor Wole Soyinka

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PROFESSOR WOLE SOYINKA Professor Wole Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka in Abeokuta, present day Ogun State, South western Nigeria. He attended St. Peter’s Primary School, Abeokuta. After a brief stay at Abeokuta Grammar School, he proceeded to Government College, Ibadan having secured a scholarship. He attended the University College, Ibadan (now University of Ibadan) and later won a scholarship to the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Professor Wole Soyinka is a man who has made significant impact in various areas of the society. He has received many laurels including the Nobel Prize for Literature. Among many other things, the following can be rightly said of Professor Soyinka. - He is a literary giant, a world renowned academic, political activist, human rights crusader and administrator. - He has made impressive contributions to scholarship, producing internationally acclaimed plays. - He has contributed to good governance and emancipation of the masses by revolting against anti-people policies and berating bad governments. - In the face of threats of arrest and detention, he has criticized corruption in government and dictatorships since the 1960s in his political speeches. - For him, politics is the struggle to positively reorganize society as against the pervasive struggle for material benefits. - He has been consistent on national issues, a national advocate of the poor and the oppressed. - He has been a major actor in the civil society engagement of the state, especially during the military era. - He was an active member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which fought the military for the enthronement of democracy. - As a lecturer at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), he founded a theatre outfit known as the Unife Guerrilla Theatre. The group presented plays in parks, markets and on street corners attacking corruption and political oppression in Nigeria. - As the pioneer head (Chairman) of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), he demonstrated competence, vision and organizational skills. The corps, under his tenure, helped to reduce road accidents and deaths, provided assistance to accident victims and improved management of vehicle registration processes. - The FRSC under him was relatively free from the pervasive corruption that characterizes some public institutions in the country. - He is largely untainted by financial controversies. .

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WOLE SOYINKA: Politics, Poetics and Postcolonialism
This page intentionally left blank WOLE SOYINKA Politics, Poetics and Postcolonialism Biodun Jeyifo examines the connections between the innovative and influential writings of Wole Soyinka and his radical politi- cal activism. Jeyifo carries out detailed analyses of Soyinka’s most ambitious works, relating them to the controversies generated by Soyinka’s use of literature and theatre for radical political purposes. He gives a fascinating account of the profound but paradoxical affinities and misgivings Soyinka has felt about the significance of the avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Jeyifo also explores Soyinka’s works with regard to the impact on his artistic sensibilities of the pervasiveness of representational ambiguity and linguistic exuberance in Yoruba culture. The analyses and evalu- ations of this study are presented in the context of Soyinka’s sus- tained engagement with the violence of collective experience in post-independence, postcolonial Africa and the developing world. No existing study of Soyinka’s works and career has attempted such a systematic investigation of their complex relationship to politics. is Professor of English at Cornell University. He is the author of The Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria () and The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Radical Sociology of African Drama (). He has written essays and monographs on Anglophone African and Caribbean literatures, Marxist cultural theory and colonial and postcolonial studies and has also edited several volumes on African drama and critical discourse. Series editor: Professor Abiola Irele, Ohio State University Each volume in this unique series of critical studies will offer a comprehensive and in-depth account of the whole œuvre of one individual writer from Africa or the Caribbean, in such a way that the book may be considered a complete coverage of the writer’s expression up to the time the study is undertaken.
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