Best Known For: Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, poet, author, teacher and political activist. He needs no further introduction. If corruption, a rigged election, was the issue in the first case, what was really the issue when you were imprisoned the second time? He died from his wounds. And so I used that expression as the title, the title of the book. Finally the premier of the region decided to just forget the whole thing and announce his victory on radio. I think its up to people to decide what they want to extract from what Ive done, or left undone. Wole Soyinka: Yes, yes. First, we had to go to church every Sunday morning morning and evening on Sundays. Wole Soyinka: Youre welcome. It was an expression, actually, by one of the politicians who was a great populist, by the way, a very fascinating character, but representative of the corruption of the politicians of that particular time. And hed agreed that wed meet and talk. Was there a particular teacher who most inspired you or challenged you? Soyinka also played a prominent role in Nigerian civil society. Of course, some changes here and there. And they were being hunted everywhere. Soyinka sometimes writes of modern West Africa in a satirical style, but his serious intent and his belief in the evils inherent in the exercise of power are usually present in his work. She is also the village belle. When the Alake levied oppressive taxes against the shopkeepers, Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, Mrs. Soyinka, and their followers refused to pay, and the Alake was forced to abdicate. They are storing them. Apart from your literary career, you have played a very active political role in Nigeria, beginning many years ago. I was never a very religious person in childhood, but I read that as well. So it was time for me to return. And that man, he would go twiddle the knob. Wole Soyinka. See, the United States had garnered a lot of good will, international good will, and then frittered it away over the years. He looked at it and put it beside him. Im nominating me! So Im going to have that experience. We missed each other. What led you to write your memoir, Ak: The Years of Childhood? And then we really felt the war was coming very, very close. In 1994, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named Wole Soyinka a Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of African culture, human rights and freedom of expression. And so I got that frustration from the two sides. Days after your incarceration, your friend Christopher Okigbo was killed in the civil war. His program became a model of traffic safety for other states in Nigeria, but events soon brought him into conflict with the national authorities. What It Takes is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice. We had Lafenwa Barracks, and we had foreign soldiers who sometimes came through. Webwife goes missing, he must travel across a war-scarred landscape in search of her. To dominate others seems to be kind of an animal part of the human make-up which we havent quite evolved out of. The problem with a grassroots movement, which is a very powerful tool, is the fact that all the blades of grass can gather themselves and go dutifully to the polls, raise their votes, and when it comes to counting time, miraculously, all these millions of blades of grass vanish and their voices are swept into the box that belongs to power. I mean, some of them were our relations, poorer than we were. Afterwards, I would ask questions, and my father would indulge me by trying to explain things to me. Finally this movement of the women, self-improvement movement, spear-headed by my aunt, Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, decided to take on both the district officers and the traditional king. I learned about that. One of his greatest works appeared the following year, the poetic tragedy Death and the Kings Horseman. Well, as I expected, it was a futile visitation. And Im afraid I didnt take very kindly to over-restriction. I started to try and recover my mathematical formulae by trial and error, and created problems for myself which I solved. Now its nothing, but at that time to leave school at 16-and-a-half was a big deal. I grew up under parents who believed very literally in that expression, Spare the rod and spoil the child. So it was very disciplined. So thats how good he was. And each time I was teaching in Ife, thered be a new space in my classroom, lost to the road. Violent, and the incumbent government used its power of incumbency in the region, in alliance with the power of the center. What are they speaking in my name? Readingnot to be accusing me, I mean, thats okay but actually saying, I have here his confessional statement, and every bit of it except the trip to Biafra a complete fabrication. For me it was the most natural thing. Maybe they worked with the railway, because if you were in the civil service, certain departments of the civil service, you were likely to be transferred anywhere, anytime. So I enjoyed that moment. He didnt stop there, he went on to body-shame the wife of Jonathan and the first lady of the country, Dame Patience Jonathan, by calling her Sheppopotamus So where did the Obidents learn their name-calling from? My father was a school teacher, in fact was a headmaster in the primary school. So I went to the studio and I took the premiers tape off and substituted my own and went away. Among the books, I remember reading the bowdlerized versions of Charles Dickens. When you made your acceptance speech, you dedicated your Nobel Prize to Nelson Mandela. Prof. Wole Soyinka and Datti Baba Ahmed. Some of them are also transporting fake military uniforms and guns and so on. If you take the sort of micro-community in my household when I was a child, for instance, we had people from all parts of the country. Today school day. A school teacher I remember, Mr. Olagbaju, came out to see what the fracas was about. I didnt finish there because the course I wanted to take was English literature, not just a general degree. From this post, he was able to watch the rehearsal and development process of new plays at a time when the British theater was entering a period of renewed vitality. He married British writer Barbara Dixon in 1958; Olaide Idowu, a Nigerian librarian, in 1963; and Folake Doherty, his current wife, in 1989. There she met an old acquaintance and got to know that Professor Wole Soyinka was interested in her life and wondered where she was. WebWole Soyinka Biographical W ole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. Here are 10 remarquable facts about Wole Soyinka. From his prison cell, he wrote a letter asserting his innocence and protesting his unlawful detention. Wole Soyinka: I would say it was that first teacher I had who admitted me into school, in quite an unorthodox manner, Mr. Olagbaju. I enjoyed the moment, actually, at the expense of the journalist. Infact woke Soyinka told tinubu and Atiku to step down. Get out the drums and start drumming, or singing, or faint or what? He was sort of the center of the small, lower middle-class intellectuals who would debate everything from the world war, you know, going on at the time, to the price of newly introduced motorcycles in the area. Poetrys even more personal, more intimate. Together, they have 3 children. I hated mathematics. So all this came about because of this politicization and the habit I had developed of examining issues very carefully. Wole Soyinka: I began writing, scribbling notes, you know, in prison. An interesting footnote about the powers of memory. Costs under a pound or whatever, and I substituted one, anyway so it wasnt and I left that one. Do you think that you were different from other kids? Because he missed it while he was at the radio. And when he learned about it later, he actually paid a visit to that place to apologize to the people of Benin. What were the people like in your community? They used to talk about the war. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government I had no time for physics or chemistry. previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 next sort by previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 next * Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. And of course the statistics rose. We celebrated, with the Muslims, their festivals the Eid, the Ramadan, et cetera, sometimes even observed part of their fast days. People never resented all of that. Even sent some poems for publication to my publisher outside, which was scribbled on toilet paper with ink Id manufactured and so on. So I picked up my fathers books, which I couldnt read, and the next thing my sister knew was that I was behind her going to school. I started drinking my coffee and reading newspapers. But the advice I always give to my young children, or to young writers, or those who want to be activists in some way, who come to me and say, What shall we do about this situation? Otherwise, you had to go through the other schools where there were no scholarships. So Im afraid the status, any kind of status, was to my disadvantage as a child! Wole Soyinka: Most exciting moment? It was a banquet which was thrown by the governor of my state, and also another governor, on my 70th birthday. I know they used to discuss it, and my parents, of course, used to. Frustration from a diminishing of that continental vision, because I saw Africa as one entity, and then a frustration about not being able to right the anomalies within my own society. I was acutely aware of what was happening in South Africa, the hardening of the South African apartheid system. What are they going to say next? This overconfidence, thats going to kill you one of these days. That kind of a thing. Two years later, won a scholarship to the University of Leeds in England, and left Africa for the first time. I couldnt resist any longer. The only ones who supported her in her love story were her sisters and her brother. As a child, he lived in an Anglican mission compound, learning the Christian teachings of his parents, as well as the Yoruba spiritualism and tribal customs of his grandfather. Im a member of a certain community which is both internal, which happens to be located in the nation space called Nigeria, but that community also extends outside the Nigerian borders. Also my uncle, the Rev. WebThe playwright, Wole Soyinka, also resisted the popular African literary and philosophical movement of Negritude, a movement he criticized for overly glorifying Africas pre-colonial past. And in a war, when a war is being fought, it is being fought on behalf of people. He tried to arrange dinner, but I was away when Gowon was in England. I wrote about it. At the time, Nigeria was a Dominion of the British Empire. For me, going to Government College was freedom! I wanted to work first, before going to college, and I worked in the Medical Stores for a year-and-a-half before going to college. And Gowon, I discovered, did not know anything about it. 1996 - 2023 American AcademyofAchievement. They should understand that they were going to visit a wronged people, and that they should take the kind of message there that would make them come back. These rumors are always flying around. So Mandela, of course, came to symbolize for me, as for most of the world, the struggle in South Africa. This will be our last question for the day. Print Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known simply as Wole Soyinka, cant be easily described. I loved disappearing by myself, climbing trees, all that I did. Sometimes, you know, some of these countries behave as if you need to bring your death certificate by extrajudicial execution before youre admitted as a political refugee. I was known as the questioner. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Soyinka judged Abacha to be the worst of the dictators who had imposed themselves on Nigeria since independence. Those services, external services, are quite sufficient to enable those whose principal concern it is the dissidents within the country themselves to take action necessary to relieve themselves of oppression. Dont misunderstand me. She woke me up in the middle of nowhere to tell me! In 1984, Soyinka released an album of his own music entitled I Love My Country, with an assembly of musicians he called The Unlimited Liability Company. He was working at UNESCO. He has periodically been a visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale. In spite of that, they could not rig the election successfully. And I traveled by road to the East. She was also I used to call her a lieutenant a political lieutenant of a very feisty, politically astute auntie of mine, called Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, who once led a revolt of the women against the traditional ruler, the Alake of Abeokuta, who was imposing some unfair taxation on womens goods. And he looked at me and he said, But, Wole, youre not yet old enough to come to school. And I said, Well, Im ready. And just decided to indulge me, felt I would get fed up with it after the first day. So the nationalists were at the fore, negotiations were going on about independence. You have your own community. Right now, curiously, Im reading Guy de Maupassant, the French short story writer, simply because I just caught sight of him in my library and I said, I havent read this one for a while. So hes my traveling companion at the moment. She is the titular Jewel. You had to paint your windows, or put drapes on, make sure no light came out. Residence at the time of the award: Nigeria. His works in all genres deploy a rich poetic language, steeped in European mythology and the Yorb spiritual traditions of West Africa, interests he fused in his masterful study Myth, Literature and the African World. So when I came in, Mrs. Kuti would just say, All right, where have you reached now in your school? Do you think that you were always destined to be an achiever? Sadiku The Favorite Sidi Baroka 4 Lakunle is all of the following except shy arrogant dismissive shortsighted 5 The stranger is a/an politician diplomat Somehow they disappeared for some time. I wasnt inquiring about myself so much, but about that whole period, so I knew what was going on. Meanwhile, Soyinka continued his criticism of the military dictatorship in Nigeria. But generally a theme preoccupies me and I write a play around it. How did you see that at the time? Just relax. Wole Soyinka: I just got tired of going to the funerals of my colleagues and my students. My friend Christopher Okigbo was Igbo, of course. But I think the way we felt the impact most was when by-laws were passed which compelled the whole town to black out our homes during the night. And The Lion and the Jewel was also, again, its a comedy of course, and it is to capture the transition between traditional society, the concept of Western, quote unquote, civilization, and trying to see the weaknesses in either. Wole Soyinka: I dont think I ever doubted my ability, for the simple reason that if Im doing something, if Im working on something and its not working out, then I just leave it alone and can do other things. Against my rational instincts, I believe that we have here a genuine case of a born-again democrat, he said. And so one day and then of course we lived in the parsonage, which meant that there were some schools, missionary schools, sort of, whose playgrounds abutted the lawn in front of our house. As a child, Soyinka lived in an Anglican Christian enclave known as the Parsonage. Nothing extraordinary, in my view, happened about what went on in Nigeria. I knew sooner or later we were going to meet. Until the focus was beamed on the ultimate traditional authority, the Alake of Abeokuta, the king, and his council of elders. So there was an increase of the burden of extraction from regular earnings of people. In 1960, he founded the theater group, The 1960 Masks, and in 1964, the Orisun Theatre Company, in which he produced his own plays and performed as an actor. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first African author to be so honored. Well be thinking of you. The man who took over, Murtala Mohammed, showed signs immediately of his wanting to absolutely dismantle the oppressive machinery that had grown under Gowon. During this period of personal independence, he began writing plays for local radio. He was arrested for this in 1967, and held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Could you tell us how that came about? A poet, playwright, essayist, memoirist, activist and novelist, he was jailed in the 60s for his outspoken And this war committed me, as a Nigerian, it committed me, and I felt that war was wrong and I refused to accept that, to be committed in that way. I invited him. Where were you when you first heard that you had won the Prize? I remember I came early in contact with Euripides, and I remember exactly, it was the Medea. The number of vehicles we stopped where we found stuffed boxes, fake ballot boxes, fake police uniforms, and we were able to track them to warehouses, where all this illegal material was stopped. Just made sure they thought I was a complete model prisoner, totally resigned to being in isolation. He relied, as many leaders unfortunately do, on the kind of information he is given by his security agencies. Writing was just part of it. Some of them were already positioning themselves to take over power. And the character I was going to use for that unique period was my uncle, Oladotun Ransome-Kuti. Even when there were disagreements, it was still part of the same community. As I said, I just do other things if its not working. The various seasons were observed. Wole Soyinka was born Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinka on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. It was called The Invention. So I had this in two directions, this dichotomy, this conflict of interests between one group and the other group in authority. Any/all written content and images displayed are provided by the blogger/author, appear herein as submitted by the blogger/author and are unedited by Opera News. She added that fascist is a very strong word that can be used for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but not for Datti and the Obidients. I was in my cousins apartment. On March 12, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka played host to Louis Odion, the senior technical assistant on media to President Muhammadu Buhari, who turned 50 on March 25. They were not the full editions. It wasnt really corruption that led to the first coup, even though this was one of the allegations. I no longer read some of the novels of my childhood, like Charles Dickens, for instance, Tolstoy. There were missionary schools, so children of very poor families who happened to be attached to missionary families might be assisted through school, but there werent scholarships as such. See, they didnt like the Road Safety Corps. And also, he had a small library, and I used to go into his library and try and read the books which I found there. So he came in and asked me. Wole Soyinka: No. His love life seems to have been as rich as his creativity. For years, Soyinka had written songs. WebWole Soyinka Biography, If you enjoyed this video, kindly LIKE and COMMENT below. And I happened, you know, by very fortunate coincidence, I learned that this was going to become a fait accompli. WebBy Uyije (self media writer) | 2 years ago Meet Folake Doherty -Soyinka, The Current And Third Wife of Prof Wole soyinka They got married in 1989 when the prof was 55 Years Old. How many months were you in prison? I began looking for my notes, the chapters Id written in prison. Wole Soyinka: Something which Ill be sad to miss, unfortunately, and that is regular space travel. Wole Soyinka: I dont know that I am conscious of that kind of purpose when I write generally. Do you regard yourself as a playwright first, rather than a poet or novelist? Once I was taken from Lagos to Kaduna and placed in solitary confinement, I knew I would never be tried. Wole Soyinka: He even came to my birthday! Ive so many interests. Where were you born? The current marriage with Folake is Wole Soyinka third marriage. When I was born, it was still under colonial rule the whole of Nigeria, of course. But then, to go after them, to declare war against them on this banal basis of unity above anything else! I wrote one of my earliest plays, The Invention, which was staged at the Royal Court Theatre, on the situation in South Africa. It was a sad recognition, even though its just affirmation of what I had predicted, but it was still sad to find it coming to pass. He was born 88 years ago. He continued his autobiography with Isara: A Voyage Around Essay, centering on his memories of his father S.A. Essay Soyinka, and Ibadan, The Penkelemes Years. First of all, I listened to discussions over the phone between my auntie, Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, and the district officer, the white, European district officer. So the population of our household was constantly shifting, and they came from different strata of society. It was rather interesting. I know that I tend to be more passionate about things than others, but beyond that, no. Isnt this the first line of concern we should have? Because I began to see them as neo as potential internal colonialists. He was a founding member of the Mbari writers and artists club. And then there came news. And of course my mother was a very passionate Christian, used to go out evangelizing. Although Wole Soyinka has always been reticent about discussing his family life, in this volume he makes a particularly touching dedication to his stoically resigned children, and to his wife Adefolake, for enduring many years of hardship and dislocation. Yet youre no longer opponents. They considered themselves divorced from the rest of the community. The first one was to Barbara Dixon, the now late British writer. And even that proved exceedingly difficult for them. Independence from Britain had not brought about the open democratic society Soyinka and others had hoped for. See More, Opera News is a free to use platform and the views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent, reflect or express the views of Opera News. Theres a way in which a child is brought up in my society. In the early 1980s, he wrote two of his best-known plays, Requiem for a Futurologist and A Play of Giants, satirizing the new dictators of Africa. With some friends, Soyinka forced his way into the local radio station and substituted a tape of his own for the recorded message prepared by the fraudulent victor of the election. Meticulous. You smuggled a letter out of prison in 1967. In 1958, The Lion and the Jewel was accepted for production by the Royal Court Theatre in London. He traveled to France and the United States for productions of his plays. Its one of the most horrible things that can happen to anybody in prison, that you feel, What else? I was never tired of listening to them. Wole Soyinka: I was born in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria. But just follow your instinct, and dont ever pretend to be what youre not. Soyinka had become one of the best-known writers in Africa, but political developments would soon thrust him into a more difficult role. It was just like a duel going on between Winston Churchill and the other man called Adolph Hitler, into which other people were roped. For me, religion was just another aspect, an aspect of the totality of ones existence. After a number of years in Europe, Soyinka settled for a time in Accra, Ghana, where he edited the literary journal Transition. We certainly had none in my household. I had no problem carrying out duties. Even to the extent that I undertook military training. So in effect, it was for my own peace of mind, to try and do everything possible to make sure the war did not take place. Hes an American, and there are certain pressing issues all over the world. So that also gave me some kind of independence, in addition to then getting to read Mr. Olagbajus books and then pestering him with questions. Then he might send a message that Im with him, and that they shouldnt bother about me. Did that influence you in any way? I come from the Yorb stock. He studied English literature at both the University of Ibadan and the University of Leeds, and now lives not far from his birthplace with his wife, Folake Wole Soyinka: We always came home on holidays when I was in Government College, Ibadan. Leave me alone. He said, No, no, no. It was very fascinating. And then one day, everything came back, and I began writing Ak: the Years of Childhood. At the turn of the decade, Wole Soyinkas creativity was expanding in all directions. So thats how I came to absorb that sense of community. What led to your release in 1969? Take on those women. When you returned to the West, you were detained, but never officially charged. Men, women, children were gunned down in cold blood. And the worst part of it was that the traditional authority took the opportunity also to increase what used to be the regular, accepted forms of taxation. Maybe thats one of the reasons why I wanted to be quite mature at least to develop some maturity before going to college. Wole Soyinka: Yes, thats right. Writing became a therapy. Within Nigeria wed lost a number of people, even the cause of death not publicly acknowledged. But I never really took to religion, as such. They still felt I was too young to strike out on my own. Teach them what youve been learning. It was that kind of mutual self-help. They were not as radical as the Southern part. shelved 69,220 times Showing 30 distinct works. What advice or encouragement would you give to your grandchildren? Radios, yes, we had the loudspeaker, and there was a special section in the paper devoted to war news. Independence from the British. And then it became more politically conscious, and as the women brought their problems, This is what we experience from the servants, the policemen of the king. These were called the Native Administration Police they were called the akoda. In 1996, Soyinka published The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Memoir of the Nigerian Crisis. My cousin was a Minister of Health under Babangida, and that was long before Abacha, because Abacha came after Babangida. The first several months of their marriage changed the mind of her parents. Wole Soyinka: At the beginning, there was single-minded direction, which was independence. I didnt fully understand what the war was all about, but we knew that there was one side which was good, the other side which was bad, and we had to help the good side win. He dedicated his Nobel acceptance speech to .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Nelson Mandela. So on weekends sometimes I would go there. Looking out for members, looking out for one another, accepting the trials and celebrating the triumphs together. Win the War Cut, tuppence, the other one a little bit more. Wole Soyinka: First of all, I was held in a maximum security prison in Lagos.
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