Wole Soyinka: Biography of the Nobel Laureate Playwright

Wole Soyinka: Life and Works

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and critic. He was the first Black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. Soyinka has been imprisoned several times for his criticism of the Nigerian government and has lived long periods in exile.

Early Life and Education

Wole Soyinka was born in Abeokuta, then a British colony, in 1934. His father was the headmaster of a school, and his mother was a shopkeeper and respected political figure in the community. Soyinka was educated at the University College of Ibadan. In 1954, he moved to England, where he studied English literature. During this period, he began studying the work of Eugene O'Neill and wrote two plays, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel.

Early Career in Nigeria

While in England, Soyinka married Barbara Skeath. In 1960, Soyinka returned to Nigeria and established an amateur acting company. He also wrote scripts for radio and television. Soyinka's first important play, A Dance of the Forest, was written for Nigeria's independence celebration. In 1962, Soyinka was appointed a lecturer in English at the University of Ife, and in 1965, he became a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos.

Exile and Return

After his release from prison, Soyinka worked as a teacher but went into voluntary exile in 1972. In 1975, Soyinka returned to Nigeria and was appointed professor of English at the University of Ife. In 1988, Soyinka became a professor of African studies and theatre at Cornell University.

Political Activism

Despite government pressure, Soyinka remained active in the Nigerian theater. His best-known essays, Myth, Literature, and the African World, were published in 1976. He has been one of the most outspoken critics of the concept of Négritude. Soyinka has also defended African democracy. In the mid-1970s, he campaigned for Idi Amin's overthrow.

Soyinka lived in exile in the US and France after leaving Nigeria in 1994. He had participated in a protest march against the military regime in 1993 and also witnessed the killings of peaceful demonstrators. The military regime of General Sani Abacha sentenced Soyinka to death in absentia. After the death of military dictator Sani Abacha in June 1998, Soyinka demanded democracy for Nigeria.

Later Life

Soyinka returned to his home country in October 1998 and received a hero's welcome. After decades of struggle for democracy and freedom of expression, Soyinka announced in 2010 that he had decided to retire from public life. Soyinka has been married three times. In 1989, he married his third wife, Folake Doherty. His second wife was Laide Idowu. Following President Bashar al-Assad's brutal crackdown on the country's uprising, Soyinka and other writers urged the United Nations in June 2011 to condemn the repression in Syria as a crime against humanity.