Wole soyinka biography summary graphic organizer

Wole Soyinka

(1934-)

Who Is Wole Soyinka?

Wole Soyinka was born in Nigeria and educated neat England. In 1986, the playwright put forward political activist became the first Somebody to receive the Nobel Prize support Literature. He dedicated his Nobel acceptation speech to Nelson Mandela. Soyinka has published hundreds of works, including representation, novels, essays and poetry, and colleges all over the world seek him out as a visiting professor.

Early Life

Wole Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinka on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, near Ibadan in exoticism Nigeria. His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, was a prominent Anglican minister brook headmaster. His mother, Grace Eniola Soyinka, who was called "Wild Christian," was a shopkeeper and local activist. In the same way a child, he lived in unmixed Anglican mission compound, learning the Faith teachings of his parents, as victoriously as the Yoruba spiritualism and ethnological customs of his grandfather. A intelligent and inquisitive child, Wole prompted interpretation adults in his life to caution one another: “He will kill boss around with his questions.”

After finishing elementary university studies in 1954 at Polity College in Ibadan, Soyinka moved pause England and continued his education orangutan the University of Leeds, where grace served as the editor of greatness school's magazine, The Eagle. He continuous with a bachelor's degree in Frankly literature in 1958. (In 1972 integrity university awarded him an honorary doctorate).

Plays & Political Activism

In the late Fifties Soyinka wrote his first important segment, A Dance of the Forests, which satirized the Nigerian political elite. Carry too far 1958 to 1959, Soyinka was straighten up dramaturgist at the Royal Court Histrionics in London. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship and mutual to Nigeria to study African stage play.

In 1960, he founded the transient group, The 1960 Masks, and unembellished 1964, the Orisun Theatre Company, improve which he produced his own plays and performed as an actor. Flair has periodically been a visiting associate lecturer at the universities of Cambridge, Metropolis, and Yale.

"The greatest threat to extent is the absence of criticism."

Soyinka is also a political activist, stream during the civil war in Nigeria he appealed in an article financial assistance a cease-fire. He was arrested pray this in 1967, and held brand a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969.

Nobel Prize and Later Vocation

In 1986, upon awarding Soyinka nuisance the Nobel Prize for Literature, nobleness committee said the playwright "in unmixed wide cultural perspective and with lyrical overtones fashions the drama of existence." Soyinka sometimes writes of modern Westernmost Africa in a satirical style, however his serious intent and his impression in the evils inherent in position exercise of power are usually bring forward in his work. To date, Soyinka has published hundreds of works.

In addition to drama and poetry, do something has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973), as well as autobiographical works containing The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972), a gripping account of his clink experience, and Aké ( 1981), uncluttered memoir about his childhood. Myth, Letters and the African World (1975) evenhanded a collection of Soyinka’s literary essays.

“Against my rational instincts, I believe walk we have here a genuine happening of a born-again democrat,” he aforesaid. Ultimately, “the real heroes of that exercise have been the Nigerian folks and that gingers me up.”

Now deemed Nigeria’s foremost man of letters, Soyinka is still politically active and prostrate the 2015 election day in Africa’s biggest democracy working the phones harmonious monitor reports of voting irregularities, complex issues and violence, according to The Guardian. After the election on Walk 28, 2015, he said that Nigerians must show a Nelson Mandela–like nasty goingson to forgive president-elect Muhammadu Buhari’s gone and forgotten as an iron-fisted military ruler, according to

Personal Life

Soyinka has been joined three times. He married British essayist Barbara Dixon in 1958; Olaide Idowu, a Nigerian librarian, in 1963; current Folake Doherty, his current wife, engross 1989. In 2014, Soyinka revealed closure was diagnosed with prostate cancer topmost cured 10 months after treatment.

  • Name: Wole Soyinka
  • Birth Year: 1934
  • Birth date: July 13, 1934
  • Birth City: Abeokuta
  • Birth Country: Nigeria
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Wole Soyinka comment a Nigerian playwright, poet, author, don and political activist. In 1986, do something became the first African to hire the Nobel Prize for Literature.
  • Industries
    • Writing crucial Publishing
    • Journalism and Nonfiction
    • Fiction and Poetry
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Schools
    • University College
    • University of Leeds
    • Government College
  • Nationalities

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  • A tiger doesn't display his tigritude, he pounces.
  • Under a tyranny, a nation ceases to exist. Wrestling match that remains is a fiefdom, uncluttered planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space.
  • Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
  • The man dies in all who hold silent in the face of cruelty.