WOLE SOYINKA Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and in Diaspora to be so honoured. In 1994, he was designated UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication. One of the most prominent members of the eminent Ransome-Kuti family, his mother Grace Eniola was the daughter of Rev. Canon JJ Ransome-Kuti, sister to Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti and Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, making Soyinka cousin to the late Fela Kuti, the late Beko Ransome-Kuti, the late Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and to Yemisi Ransome-Kuti. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta, specifically, a Remo family from Isara-Remo on July 13, 1934. His father was Christian Clergy, Canon SA Soyinka (aka "Teacher pupa" (light skinned teacher)). He received a primary school education in Abeokuta and attended secondary school at Government College, Ibadan. He then studied at the University College, Ibadan (1952–1954) where he founded the pyrates confraternity (an anti-corruption and justice seeking student organization) and the University of Leeds (1954–1957) from which he received a First class honours degree in English Literature. He worked as a play reader at the Royal Court Theatre in London before returning to Nigeria to study African drama. He taught in the Universities of Lagos, Ibadan, and Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife). He became a Professor of Comparative Literature at the then University of Ife in 1975. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the same university. Soyinka has played an active role in Nigeria's political history. In 1965, he made a broadcast demanding the cancellation of the rigged Western Nigeria Regional Elections following his seizure of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio. He was arrested, arraigned but freed on a technicality by Justice Esho. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War he was arrested by the Federal Government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for his attempts at brokering a peace between the warring Nigerian and Biafran parties. While in prison he wrote poetry on tissue paper which was published in a collection titled Poems from Prison. He was released 22 months later after international attention was drawn to his unwarranted imprisonment. His experiences in prison are recounted in his book The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka (1972). He has been an implacable, consistent and outspoken critic of many Nigerian military dictators, and of political tyrannies worldwide, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. A great deal of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". This activism has often exposed him to great personal risk, most notable during the government of General Sani Abacha (1993–1998), which pronounced a death sentence on him "in absentia". During Abacha's regime, Soyinka escaped from Nigeria via the "Nadeco Route" on motorcycle. While abroad, he visited parliaments and conferred with world leaders to impose a regime of sanctions against the brutal Abacha regime. These actions and his setting up of the Radio Kudirat helped immensely in securing Nigeria's return to civilian democratic governance. Living abroad, mainly in the United States, he was a professor first at Cornell University and then subsequently taught at Emory University in Atlanta. When civilian rule returned in 1999, Soyinka returned to a hero's welcome back in Lagos, Nigeria. He accepted an Emeritus Professorship at Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) on the condition that the university bar all former military officers from the position of chancellor. Soyinka is currently the Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing at the English department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the President's Marymount Institute Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US. Biography Early life Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934, in the city of Abeokuta, Ogun State in Nigeria's Western Region (at that time a British dominion), as the second of six children of Samuel Ayodele Soyinka and Grace Eniola Soyinka. His father, whom he often refers to as S.A. or "Essay" in literalized form, was the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta. Soyinka's mother, dubbed by him as "Wild Christian", owned a shop in the nearby market and was a political activist within the women's movement in the local community. His mother was Anglican, although much of the community followed indigenous Yorùbá religious tradition. Soyinka grew up in an atmosphere of religious syncretism, with influences from both Christianity and his culture's traditional beliefs. The home of the Soyinka family had electricity and radio (chiefly thanks to his father). In 1940, after attending St. Peters Primary School, Soyinka went to Abẹokuta Grammar School, where he won several prizes for literary composition. In 1946 he was accepted by Government College in Ibadan, at that time one of Nigeria’s elite secondary schools. After the completion of his studies there, Soyinka moved to Lagos where he found employment as a clerk. During this time he wrote some radio plays and short stories that were broadcast on Nigerian radio stations. After finishing his course in 1952, he began studies at University College in Ibadan, connected with University of London. During this course he studied English literature, Greek, and Western history. In the year 1953-1954, his second and last at University College, Ibadan, Soyinka commenced work on his first publication, a short radio broadcast for Nigerian Broadcasting Service National Programme called "Keffi's Birthday Threat," which was broadcast in July 1954 on Nigerian Radio Times. Whilst at university, Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, the first confraternity in Nigeria. Studies abroad and at home Later in 1954 Soyinka relocated to England, where he continued his studies in English literature, under the supervision of his mentor Wilson Knight at the University of Leeds. He became acquainted then with a number of young, gifted British writers. Before defending his B.A., Soyinka successfully engaged in literary fiction, publishing several pieces of comedic nature. He also worked as an editor for The Eagle, an infrequent periodical of humorous character. In a page two column in The Eagle, he wrote commentaries on academic life, often stingingly criticizing his university peers. Well known for his sharp tongue, he is said to have courteously defended, affronted and insulted female colleagues. After completing his degree, he remained in Leeds with the intention of earning an M.A. Influenced by his promoter, Soyinka decided to attempt to merge European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage. In 1958 his first major play emerged, titled The Swamp Dwellers. One year later, he wrote The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy which received interest from several members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka left Leeds and moved to London, where he worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan. However, by 1960, Soyinka had received the Rockefeller Research Fellowship from his alma mater in Ibadan, and returned to Nigeria. In March he produced his new satire The Trials of Brother Jero. One of his most recognized plays, A Dance of The Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day. On 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. Also in 1960, Soyinka established an amateur ensemble acting company which would consume much of his time over the next few years: the Nineteen-Sixty Masks. In addition to these activities, Soyinka published various works satirizing the "emergency" in the Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the federal government. This had usurped the democratically-elected, Yorùbá-based Action Group (AG) political party by installing the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), an amalgamation of conservative Yoruba interests backed by the largely Northern-dominated federal government. The increasingly militarized occupation of the Western Region eventually led to a disequilibrium in power, placing the more left-leaning Action Group and the Igbo-centric National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in tenuous positions, as national politics began catering exclusively to more conservative interests. This imbalance eventually led to a coup by military officers under Major Kaduna Nzeogwu. With the money gained from the Rockefeller Foundation for research on African Theater, Soyinka bought a Land Rover and began traveling throughout the country as a researcher with the Department of English Language of the University College in Ibadan. In an essay published at this time, he criticized Leopold Senghor's Négritude as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. "A tiger does not shout its tigritude," he declared, "it acts." In December 1962, his essay "Towards a True Theater" was published, and he began working for the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ. Soyinka discussed current affairs with "negrophiles," and on several occasions openly opposed government censorship. At the end of 1963, his first feature-length movie emerged, Culture in Transition. In April 1964 The Interpreters, "a complex but also vividly documentary novel", was published in London. That December, together with other scientists and men of theater, he founded the Drama Association of Nigeria.