Soyinka, Wole, << shaw YIHN kuh or shaw ihn KAH, WOH lay >> (1934-…), won the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature. Soyinka, a Nigerian, was the first African writer to win the prize. Soyinka writes in English, but draws from the philosophy, religion, and language of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria. He has written novels, poems, and nonfiction, but he is best known for his plays.
One of Soyinka’s major plays, The Road (1965), explores colonialism and human responsibility. It also deals with the relationships between the lower and the middle class, and between Yoruba religion and Christianity. Soyinka attacks European colonialism in his plays Kongi’s Harvest (1965) and A Play of Giants (1984). However, his focus in these plays is on the forces within African society that permit dictatorship.
Soyinka believes that artists must sometimes take political action. In 1967, the Nigerian government arrested Soyinka because he tried to stop the civil war in Nigeria. He was jailed for about two years. The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka (1972) is his account of how he survived in prison. In The Open Sore of a Continent (1996) and Of Africa (2013), Soyinka analyzes Nigeria’s political and social problems. He also wrote the memoirs Ake: The Years of Childhood (1981) and You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006). Chronicles from the Happiest People on Earth (2021) is a satirical mystery novel.
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Wole is an abbreviated form of his middle name.
