By Banji Ayoola
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has sent warm felicitations to the first black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Prof Wole Soyinka, turns 85 on Saturday.
Wole Soyinka, in full: Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, was born on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Buhari rejoiced with the literary icon for being one of the country’s greatest prides, and a universal brand.
The President, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, joined family and friends of the cerebral academic in celebrating the many years of laudable achievements, recognitions, awards, and consistency, all which have cumulated in pride to Nigerians, Africans and the black race.
He saluted the Nobel Laureate for his intellectual momentum, interventions on state issues and polity through articles and comments, penchant for justice, and persistence in holding leaders to account.
The President affirmed that Soyinka’s lifestyle sends a message to all Nigerians and Africans, especially the younger generation, that real success is measured by the intangibles of courage and impact brought to the life of others, rather than pursuit of personal interests.
He congratulated the literary giant for projecting Nigerian and African values to the world.
He wished him more years of health, wisdom and service to the nation and humanity.
A playwright and political activist, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, he sometimes writes in a satirical style to condemn and correct social ills, and usually plays a leading role in entrenching full democracy and good governance in Nigeria. Over the years, he has been a consistent leading voice against misrule, injustice and oppression not only in his country but across the world.
Soyinka’s decades of political activism included periods of imprisonment and exile, and he has founded, headed, or participated in several political groups, including the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO; National Liberation Council of Nigeria; and Pro-National Conference Organisations PRONACO, all which gallantly led Nigeria’s tortuous and bloody pro-democracy struggles against military dictatorship.
In 2010, he founded the Democratic Front for People’s Federation and served as chairman of the party.
He attended Government College and University College in Ibadan before graduating in 1958 with a degree in English from the University of Leeds in England.
When he returned to Nigeria, he founded an acting company and wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forests (produced 1960; published 1963), for the Nigerian independence celebrations. The play satirises the fledgling nation by stripping it of romantic legend and by showing that the present is no more a golden age than was the past.
He wrote several plays in a lighter vein, making fun of pompous, Westernized schoolteachers in The Lion and the Jewel (first performed in Ibadan, 1959; published 1963) and mocking the clever preachers of upstart prayer-churches who grow fat on the credulity of their parishioners in The Trials of Brother Jero (performed 1960; published 1963) and Jero’s Metamorphosis (1973).
But his more serious plays, such as The Strong Breed (1963), Kongi’s Harvest (opened the first Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, 1966; published 1967), The Road (1965), From Zia, with Love (1992), and even the parody King Baabu (performed 2001; published 2002), reveal his disregard for African authoritarian leadership and his disillusionment with Nigerian society as a whole.
Other notable plays include Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970; published 1971), Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), and The Beatification of Area Boy (1995).
In these and Soyinka’s other dramas, Western elements are skillfully fused with subject matter and dramatic techniques deeply rooted in Yoruba folklore and religion. Symbolism, flashback, and ingenious plotting contribute to a rich dramatic structure.
His best works exhibit humour and fine poetic style as well as a gift for irony and satire and for accurately matching the language of his complex characters to their social position and moral qualities..
From 1960 to 1964, Soyinka was co-editor of Black Orpheus, an important literary journal. From 1960 onward, he taught literature and drama and headed theatre groups at various Nigerian universities, including those of Ibadan, Ife, and Lagos.
After winning the Nobel Prize, he also was sought after as a lecturer, and many of his lectures were published – notably the Reith Lectures of 2004, as Climate of Fear(2004).
Though he considered himself primarily a playwright, Soyinka also wrote novels – The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973) – and several other volumes of poetry. The latter include Idanre, and Other Poems(1967) and Poems from Prison (1969; republished as A Shuttle in the Crypt, 1972), published together as Early Poems (1998); Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988); and Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002).
His verse is characterised by a precise command of language and a mastery of lyric, dramatic, and meditative poetic forms.
He wrote a good deal of Poems from Prison while he was jailed between 1967 and 69 for speaking out against the war brought on by the attempted secession of Biafra from Nigeria. The Man Died (1972) is his prose account of his arrest and 22-month imprisonment.
Soyinka’s principal critical work is Myth, Literature, and the African World (1976), a collection of essays in which he examines the role of the artist in the light of Yoruba mythology and symbolism. Art, Dialogue, and Outrage (1988) is a work on similar themes of art, culture, and society.
He continuously addressed Africa’s ills and Western responsibility in The Open Sore of a Continent (1996) and The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness (1999).
An autobiography, Aké: The Years of Childhood, was published in 1981 and followed by the companion pieces Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay (1989) and Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir, 1946–1965 (1994).
In 2006, he published another memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn. Between 2005 and 2006 Soyinka served on the Encyclopædia Britannica Editorial Board of Advisors.
With more facts from Encyclopaedia Britannica
