Jenn Writes

In celebrating a July literary birthday, we reflect on the life and work of Nobel prize winner, Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, better known as Wole Soyinka, born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, on 13 July 1934.

Long before #BlackLivesMatter, there was Wole Soyinka.

The playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and political activist has, for more than a half century, been the voice and conscience of his country and, in fact, of Africa as a whole, calling out “the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it”.

Soyinka was the first African to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature, in 1986 at a time when Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned in South Africa. His acceptance speech was given shortly after the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme and the death of Mozambique’s leader Samora Machel in a plane crash on South African soil.

His speech, on the themes of racism, blackness and apartheid, is invaluable and worth reading today.

By the time he received the international accolade, Soyinka had already rattled the establishment, starting with the production of his first major drama, a satire called A Dance of the Forests, which was staged for the country’s independence celebrations.

From 1967 to 1969 Soyinka spent two years in prison for his opposition to the civil war – much of the time spent in solitary confinement. The notes and poems he wrote on toilet paper were smuggled out of jail, providing the source of his memoir The Man Died, published in 1972.

He then went into exile, finding himself sentenced to death in absentia by the regime of military ruler Sani Abacha, returning only after Abacha’s death in 1998 – his voice undiminished.

Notable works include:

·         A Dance of the Forests

·         Death and the King’s Horseman

·         Jero’s Metamorphosis

·         Myth, Literature, and the African World

·         The Interpreters

·         The Lion and the Jewel

·         A Shuttle in the Crypt

·         The Trials of Brother Jero

·         You Must Set Forth at Dawn

At 87, Soyinka is still hard at work. His novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, is set to be launched in September 2021.