Wole Soyinka - Wikipedia Wole Soyinka From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka in 2018 Born Akínwándé Olúwolé Babátúndé Sóyíinká[1] (1934-07-13) 13 July 1934 (age 86) Abeokuta, Nigeria Protectorate (now Ogun State, Nigeria) Occupation Author poet playwright Nationality Nigerian Education Abeokuta Grammar School University of Leeds Period 1957–present Genre Drama novel poetry Subject Comparative literature Notable awards Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature 1990 Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award 2009 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement 2012 Relatives Ransome-Kuti family Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: Akínwándé Olúwo̩lé Babátúndé S̩óyíinká; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (pronounced [wɔlé ʃójĩnká]), is a Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature,[2] the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.[3][a] Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan,[4] and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England.[5] After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections.[6] In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.[7] Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".[6] During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route." Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia."[6] With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation. In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ife.[8] With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus.[7] While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991[9][10] and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.[7][11] He has also taught at the universities of Oxford, Harvard and Yale.[12][13] Soyinka was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.[14] In December 2017, he was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category[15][16] awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".[17] Contents 1 Life and work 1.1 Early career 1.2 Civil war and imprisonment 1.3 Release and literary production 1.4 Since 1986 1.5 Personal life 2 Legacy and honours 3 Works 4 Academic works about his writings 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Life and work[edit] A descendant of the rulers of Isara, Soyinka was born the second of seven children, in the city of Abẹokuta, Ogun State, in Nigeria, at that time a British Dominion. His siblings were Atinuke "Tinu" Aina Soyinka, Femi Soyinka, Yeside Soyinka, Omofolabo "Folabo" Ajayi-Soyinka and Kayode Soyinka. His younger sister Folashade Soyinka died on her 1st birthday. His father, Samuel Ayodele Soyinka (whom he called S.A. or "Essay"), was an Anglican minister and the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta. Having solid family connections, the elder Soyinka was a cousin of the Odemo, or King, of Isara-Remo Samuel Akinsanya, a founding father of Nigeria. Soyinka's mother, Grace Eniola Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison) (whom he dubbed the "Wild Christian"), owned a shop in the nearby market. She was a political activist within the women's movement in the local community. She was also Anglican. As much of the community followed indigenous Yorùbá religious tradition, Soyinka grew up in a religious atmosphere of syncretism, with influences from both cultures. He was raised in a religious family, attending church services and singing in the choir from an early age; however Soyinka himself became an atheist later in life.[18][19] His father's position enabled him to get electricity and radio at home. He writes extensively about his childhood in one of his memoirs, Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981).[20] Soyinka, at Festivaletteratura in Mantua, September 7, 2019, Teatro Bibiena. His mother was one of the most prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family: she was the granddaughter of Rev. Canon J. J. Ransome-Kuti as the only daughter of his first daughter Anne Lape Iyabode Ransome-Kuti, and was therefore a niece to Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti, Oludotun Ransome-Kuti and niece in-law to Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Among Soyinka's first cousins once removed were the musician Fela Kuti, the human rights activist Beko Ransome-Kuti, politician Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and activist Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.[21] His second cousins include musicians Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, and dancer Yeni Kuti.[citation needed] In 1940, after attending St. Peter's Primary School in Abeokuta, Soyinka went to Abeokuta Grammar School, where he won several prizes for literary composition.[22] In 1946 he was accepted by Government College in Ibadan, at that time one of Nigeria's elite secondary schools.[22] After finishing his course at Government College in 1952, he began studies at University College Ibadan (1952–54), affiliated with the University of London.[citation needed] He studied English literature, Greek, and Western history. Among his lecturers was Molly Mahood, a British literary scholar.[23] In the year 1953–54, his second and last at University College, Soyinka began work on "Keffi's Birthday Treat", a short radio play for Nigerian Broadcasting Service that was broadcast in July 1954.[24] While at university, Soyinka and six others founded the Pyrates Confraternity, an anti-corruption and justice-seeking student organisation, the first confraternity in Nigeria.[citation needed] Later in 1954, Soyinka relocated to England, where he continued his studies in English literature, under the supervision of his mentor Wilson Knight at the University of Leeds (1954–57).[25] He met numerous young, gifted British writers. Before defending his B.A., Soyinka began publishing and working as editor for a satirical magazine called The Eagle, in which wrote a column on academic life, often criticising his university peers.[26] Early career[edit] After graduating with an upper second-class degree, Soyinka remained in Leeds and began working on an MA.[27] He intended to write new works combining European theatrical traditions with those of his Yorùbá cultural heritage. His first major play, The Swamp Dwellers (1958), was followed a year later by The Lion and the Jewel, a comedy that attracted interest from several members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Encouraged, Soyinka moved to London, where he worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. During the same period, both of his plays were performed in Ibadan. They dealt with the uneasy relationship between progress and tradition in Nigeria.[28] In 1957, his play The Invention was the first of his works to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre.[29] At that time his only published works were poems such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which were published in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus.[30] This was founded in 1957 by the German scholar Ulli Beier, who had been teaching at the University of Ibadan since 1950.[31] Soyinka received a Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College in Ibadan, his alma mater, for research on African theatre, and he returned to Nigeria. After its fifth issue (November 1959), Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn to become coeditor for the literary periodical Black Orpheus (its name derived from a 1948 essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a preface to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor).[32] He produced his new satire, The Trials of Brother Jero. His work A Dance of The Forest (1960), a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that year as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day. On 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. The play satirizes the fledgling nation by showing that the present is no more a golden age than was the past. Also in 1960, Soyinka established the "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", an amateur acting ensemble to which he devoted considerable time over the next few years.[33] Soyinka wrote the first full-length play produced on Nigerian television. Entitled My Father's Burden and directed by Segun Olusola, the play was featured on the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) on 6 August 1960.[34][35] Soyinka published works satirising the "Emergency" in the Western Region of Nigeria, as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the federal government. The political tensions arising from recent post-colonial independence eventually led to a military coup and civil war (1967–70).[18] With the Rockefeller grant, Soyinka bought a Land Rover, and he began travelling throughout the country as a researcher with the Department of English Language of the University College in Ibadan. In an essay of the time, he criticised Leopold Senghor's Négritude movement as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernisation. He is often quoted as having said, "A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces." But in fact, Soyinka wrote in a 1960 essay for the Horn: "the duiker will not paint 'duiker' on his beautiful back to proclaim his duikeritude; you'll know him by his elegant leap."[36][37] In Death and the King Horsemen he states: "The elephant trails no tethering-rope; that king is not yet crowned who will peg an elephant."[citation needed] In December 1962, Soyinka's essay "Towards a True Theater" was published. He began teaching with the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifẹ. He discussed current affairs with "négrophiles," and on several occasions openly condemned government censorship. At the end of 1963, his first feature-length movie, Culture in Transition, was released. In April 1964 The Interpreters, "a complex but also vividly documentary novel",[38] was published in London.[citation needed] That December, together with scientists and men of theatre, Soyinka founded the Drama Association of Nigeria. In 1964 he also resigned his university post, as a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the authorities. A few months later, in 1965, he was arrested for the first time, charged with holding up a radio station at gunpoint (as described in his 2006 memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn)[39] and replacing the tape of a recorded speech by the premier of Western Nigeria with a different tape containing accusations of election malpractice. Soyinka was released after a few months of confinement, as a result of protests by the international community of writers. This same year he wrote two more dramatic pieces: Before the Blackout and the comedy Kongi's Harvest. He also wrote The Detainee, a radio play for the BBC in London. His play The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Arts Festival,[40] opening on 14 September 1965, at the Theatre Royal.[41] At the end of the year, he was promoted to headmaster and senior lecturer in the Department of English Language at University of Lagos.[citation needed] Soyinka's political speeches at that time criticised the cult of personality and government corruption in African dictatorships. In April 1966, his play Kongi's Harvest was produced in revival at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.[42] The Road was awarded the Grand Prix. In June 1965, he produced his play The Lion and The Jewel for Hampstead Theatre Club in London.[citation needed] Civil war and imprisonment[edit] After becoming chief of the Cathedral of Drama at the University of Ibadan, Soyinka became more politically active. Following the military coup of January 1966, he secretly and unofficially met with the military governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in the Southeastern town of Enugu (August 1967), to try to avert civil war.[citation needed] As a result, he had to go into hiding. He was imprisoned for 22 months[43] as civil war ensued between the Federal government of Nigeria and the Biafrans. Though refused materials such as books, pens, and paper, he still wrote a significant body of poems and notes criticising the Nigerian government while in prison.[44] Despite his imprisonment, in September 1967, his play The Lion and The Jewel was produced in Accra. In November The Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed were produced in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York City. He also published a collection of his poetry, Idanre and Other Poems. It was inspired by Soyinka's visit to the sanctuary of the Yorùbá deity Ogun, whom he regards as his "companion" deity, kindred spirit, and protector.[44] In 1968, the Negro Ensemble Company in New York produced Kongi's Harvest.[citation needed] While still imprisoned, Soyinka translated from Yoruba a fantastical novel by his compatriot D. O. Fagunwa, entitled The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga. Release and literary production[edit] In October 1969, when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed.[33] For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend's farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of the Pentheus myth.[45] He soon published in London a book of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the end of the year, he returned to his office as Headmaster of Cathedral of Drama in Ibadan. In 1970, he produced the play Kongi's Harvest, while simultaneously adapting it as a film of the same title. In June 1970, he finished another play, called Madmen and Specialists.[citation needed] Together with the group of 15 actors of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the United States, to the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, where his latest play premiered. It gave them all experience with theatrical production in another English-speaking country. In 1971, his poetry collection A Shuttle in the Crypt was published. Madmen and Specialists was produced in Ibadan that year.[46] Soyinka travelled to Paris to take the lead role as Patrice Lumumba, the murdered first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, in the production of his Murderous Angels. In April 1971, concerned about the political situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began years of voluntary exile.[citation needed] In July in Paris, excerpts from his well-known play The Dance of The Forests were performed. In 1972, his novel Season of Anomy and his Collected Plays were both published by Oxford University Press. His powerful autobiographical work The Man Died, a collection of notes from prison, was also published that year.[47] He was awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds in 1973.[48] In the same year the National Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the play The Bacchae of Euripides,[45] and his plays Camwood on the Leaves and Jero's Metamorphosis were also first published. From 1973 to 1975, Soyinka spent time on scientific studies.[clarification needed] He spent a year as a visiting fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge University[clarification needed][49] 1973–74 and wrote Death and the King's Horseman, which had its first reading at Churchill College (which Dapo Ladimeji and Skip Gates attended), and gave a series of lectures at a number of European universities. In 1974, his Collected Plays, Volume II was issued by Oxford University Press. In 1975 Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor for Transition, a magazine based in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, where he moved for some time.[citation needed] He used his columns in Transition to criticise the "negrophiles" (for instance, his article "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes. He protested against the military junta of Idi Amin in Uganda. After the political turnover in Nigeria and the subversion of Gowon's military regime in 1975, Soyinka returned to his homeland and resumed his position at the Cathedral of Comparative Literature at the University of Ife. In 1976, he published his poetry collection Ogun Abibiman, as well as a collection of essays entitled Myth, Literature and the African World.[50] In these, Soyinka explores the genesis of mysticism in African theatre and, using examples from both European and African literature, compares and contrasts the cultures. He delivered a series of guest lectures at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in Legon. In October, the French version of The Dance of The Forests was performed in Dakar, while in Ife, his play Death and The King's Horseman premièred. In 1977, Opera Wọnyọsi, his adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, was staged in Ibadan. In 1979 he both directed and acted in Jon Blair and Norman Fenton's drama The Biko Inquest, a work based on the life of Steve Biko, a South African student and human rights activist who was beaten to death by apartheid police forces.[citation needed] In 1981 Soyinka published his autobiographical work Aké: The Years of Childhood, which won a 1983 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.[citation needed] Soyinka founded another theatrical group called the Guerrilla Unit. Its goal was to work with local communities in analysing their problems and to express some of their grievances in dramatic sketches. In 1983 his play Requiem for a Futurologist had its first performance at the University of Ife. In July, one of his musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record entitled I Love My Country, on which several prominent Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka. In 1984, he directed the film Blues for a Prodigal; his new play A Play of Giants was produced the same year. During the years 1975–84, Soyinka was more politically active. At the University of Ife, his administrative duties included the security of public roads. He criticized the corruption in the government of the democratically elected President Shehu Shagari. When he was replaced by the army general Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with the military. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned his 1972 book The Man Died: Prison Notes.[51] In 1985, his play Requiem for a Futurologist was published in London by André Deutsch. Since 1986[edit] Soyinka in 2015. Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986,[52][53] becoming the first African laureate. He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved". He also notes that "it is the first Nobel Prize awarded to an African writer or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire."[54] His Nobel acceptance speech, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was devoted to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the Nationalist South African government. In 1986, he received the Agip Prize for Literature. In 1988, his collection of poems Mandela's Earth, and Other Poems was published, while in Nigeria another collection of essays entitled Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture appeared. In the same year, Soyinka accepted the position of Professor of African Studies and Theatre at Cornell University.[55] In 1990, a third novel, inspired by his father's intellectual circle, Isara: A Voyage Around Essay, appeared. In July 1991 the BBC African Service transmitted his radio play A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year (1992) in Siena (Italy), his play From Zia with Love had its premiere.[citation needed] Both works are very bitter political parodies, based on events that took place in Nigeria in the 1980s. In 1993 Soyinka was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. The next year another part of his autobiography appeared: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946–1965). The following year his play The Beatification of Area Boy was published. In October 1994, he was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.[32] In November 1994, Soyinka fled from Nigeria through the border with Benin and then to the United States.[citation needed] In 1996 his book The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis was first published. In 1997 he was charged with treason by the government of General Sani Abacha.[56][57][58] The International Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in 1993 to provide support for writers victimized by persecution. Soyinka became the organization's second president from 1997 to 2000.[59][60] In 1999 a new volume of poems by Soyinka, entitled Outsiders, was released. That same year, a BBC-commissioned play called Document of Identity aired on BBC Radio 3, telling the lightly-fictionalized story of the problems his daughter's family encountered during a stopover in Britain when they fled Nigeria for the US in 1997; her baby was born prematurely in London and became a stateless person.[6] His play King Baabu premièred in Lagos in 2001,[61] a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship.[61] In 2002 a collection of his poems, Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known, was published by Methuen. In April 2006, his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn was published by Random House. In 2006 he cancelled his keynote speech for the annual S.E.A. Write Awards Ceremony in Bangkok to protest the Thai military's successful coup against the government.[62] In April 2007, Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread fraud and violence.[citation needed] In the wake of the Christmas Day (2009) bombing attempt on a flight to the US by a Nigerian student who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka questioned the United Kingdom's social logic that allows every religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting that it is being abused by religious fundamentalists thereby turning England into a cesspit for the breeding of extremism.[citation needed] He supported the freedom of worship but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence.[63] In August 2014, Soyinka delivered a recording of his speech "From Chibok with Love" to the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, hosted by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the British Humanist Association.[citation needed] The Congress theme was Freedom of thought and expression: Forging a 21st Century Enlightenment. He was awarded the 2014 International Humanist Award.[64][65] He served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs.[11] Soyinka opposes allowing Fulani herdsmen the ability to graze their cattle on open land in southern, Christian-dominated Nigeria and believes these herdsmen should be declared terrorists to enable the restriction of their movements.[66] Personal life[edit] Soyinka has been married three times and divorced twice. He has children from his three marriages. His first marriage was in 1958 to the late British writer, Barbara Dixon, whom he met at the University of Leeds in the 1950s. Barbara was the mother of his first son, Olaokun. His second marriage was in 1963 to Nigerian librarian Olaide Idowu,[67] with whom he had three daughters, Moremi, Iyetade (deceased),[68] Peyibomi, and a second son, Ilemakin. Soyinka married Folake Doherty in 1989.[6][69] In 2014, he revealed his battle with prostate cancer.[70] Legacy and honours[edit] The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was founded in 1994 and "is dedicated to honouring one of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring literary icons: Professor Wole Soyinka".[71] It is organised by the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which organisation Soyinka with six other students founded in 1952 at the then University College Ibadan.[72] In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built a writers' enclave in his honour.[citation needed] It is located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing. In 2013, he visited the Benin Moat as the representative of UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project.[73] He is currently the consultant for the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos State deeming him as the only person who could bring out the aims and objectives of the Festival to the people.[74] He was appointed a patron of Humanists UK in 2020.[75] In 2014, the collection Crucible of the Ages: Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochwuku Promise, was published by Bookcraft in Nigeria and Ayebia Clarke Publishing in the UK, with tributes and contributions from Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Margaret Busby, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ali Mazrui, Sefi Atta, and others.[76][77] In 2018, Henry Louis Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerian filmmaker and writer Onyeka Nwelue visited him in Harvard and was making a documentary film on Wole Soyinka.[78] As part of efforts to mark his 84th birthday, a collection of poems titled 84 Delicious Bottles of Wine was published for Wole Soyinka, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa. Among the notable contributors was Adamu Usman Garko, award-winning teenage essayist, poet and writer.[79] 1973: Honorary D.Litt., University of Leeds[80] 1973–74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge 1983: Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature[81] 1983: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States 1986: Nobel Prize for Literature 1986: Agip Prize for Literature 1986: Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR). 1990: Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature 1993: Honorary doctorate, Harvard University 2002: Honorary fellowship, SOAS[82] 2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University[83] 2005: Conferred with the chieftaincy title of the Akinlatun of Egbaland by the Oba Alake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland. Soyinka became a tribal aristocrat by way of this, one vested with the right to use the Yoruba title Oloye as a pre-nominal honorific.[84] 2009: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement[85] 2013: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement, United States[86] 2014: International Humanist Award[64][65] 2017: Joins the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Humanities[87] 2017: "Special Prize" of the Europe Theatre Prize[17] 2018: University of Ibadan renamed its arts theater to Wole Soyinka Theatre.[88] 2018: Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).[89] Works[edit] Plays Keffi's Birthday Treat (1954) The Invention (1957) The Swamp Dwellers (1958) A Quality of Violence (1959)[90] The Lion and the Jewel (1959) The Trials of Brother Jero A Dance of the Forests (1960) My Father's Burden (1960) The Strong Breed (1964) Before the Blackout (1964) Kongi's Harvest (1964) The Road (1965) Madmen and Specialists (1970) The Bacchae of Euripides (1973) Camwood on the Leaves (1973) Jero's Metamorphosis (1973) Death and the King's Horseman (1975) Opera Wonyosi (1977) Requiem for a Futurologist (1983) A Play of Giants (1984) Childe Internationale (1987)[91][92] From Zia with Love (1992) The Detainee (radio play) A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play) The Beatification of Area Boy (1996) Document of Identity (radio play, 1999) King Baabu (2001) Etiki Revu Wetin Alapata Apata (2011) "Thus Spake Orunmila" (short piece; in Sixty-Six Books (2011)[93] Novels The Interpreters (1964) Season of Anomy (1972) Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth (forthcoming, Bookcraft, 2021)[94] Short stories A Tale of Two (1958) Egbe's Sworn Enemy (1960) Madame Etienne's Establishment (1960) Memoirs The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981) Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a memoir 1945–1965 (1989) Isara: A Voyage around Essay (1990) You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006) Poetry collections Telephone Conversation (1963) (appeared in Modern Poetry in Africa) Idanre and other poems (1967) A Big Airplane Crashed into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison) (1969) A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971) Ogun Abibiman (1976) Mandela's Earth and other poems (1988) Early Poems (1997) Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002) Essays Towards a True Theater (1962) Culture in Transition (1963) Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition A Voice That Would Not Be Silenced Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture (1988) From Drama and the African World View (1976) Myth, Literature, and the African World (1976)[95] The Blackman and the Veil (1990)[96] The Credo of Being and Nothingness (1991) The Burden of Memory – The Muse of Forgiveness (1999) A Climate of Fear (the BBC Reith Lectures 2004, audio and transcripts) New Imperialism (2009)[97] Of Africa (2012)[98][99] Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions (2019) Movies Kongi's Harvest Culture in Transition Blues for a Prodigal Translations The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter’s Saga (1968; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀) In the Forest of Olodumare (2010; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Igbo Olodumare) Academic works about his writings[edit] Osisanwo, Ayo, & Muideen Adekunle. "Expressions of Political Consciousness in Wole Soyinka’s Alapata Apata and Femi Osofisan's Morountodun: A Pragma-Stylistic Analysis". Ibadan Journal of English Studies 7 (2011): 521–542. See also[edit] Literature portal Poetry portal Africa portal Nigeria portal Nigerian literature List of 20th-century writers List of African writers Black Nobel Prize laureates Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa List of Nigerian writers Notes[edit] ^ The African-born writers Albert Camus and Claude Simon, both of whom were of French ancestry, had previously won the prize. References[edit] ^ Tyler Wasson; Gert H. Brieger (1 January 1987). Nobel Prize Winners: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, Volume 1. The University of Michigan, US. p. 993. ISBN 9780824207564. Retrieved 4 December 2014. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 Wole Soyinka". The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 10 December 2013. ^ Abiy Ahmed (9 December 2019). "Africa's Nobel Prize winners: A list". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 27 May 2020. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 18 April 2019. ^ Wole Soyinka (2000) [1981]. Aké: The Years of Childhood. Nigeria: Methuen. p. 1. ISBN 9780413751904. Retrieved 8 February 2019. ^ a b c d e Maya Jaggi (2 November 2002). "Ousting monsters". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 October 2016. ^ a b c Theresia de Vroom, "The Many Dimensions of Wole Soyinka" Archived 5 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Vistas, Loyola Marymount University. Retrieved 17 April 2012. ^ "Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife » Brief History of the University". www.oauife.edu.ng. Retrieved 4 October 2016. ^ "Soyinka, Wole 1934–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 22 December 2017. ^ https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/25283/019_37.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y ^ a b "Nobel Laureate Soyinka at NYU for Events in October", News Release, NYU, 16 September 2016. ^ "Profile of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka" (PDF). The University of Alberta. Retrieved 10 December 2013. ^ Jacquie Posey (18 November 2004). "Nigerian Writer, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka to Speak at Penn". The University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 10 December 2013. ^ "SOYINKA ON STAGE". Retrieved 28 April 2018. ^ "Wole Soyinka Wins The Europe Theatre Prize". PM NEWS Nigeria. 12 December 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017. ^ "Soyinka Wins 2017 Europe Theatre Prize". Concise News. 15 December 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017. ^ a b "Wole Soyinka to receive Europe Theatre Prize 2017". James Murua's Literature Blog. 14 December 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2017. ^ a b "Wole Soyinka Biography and Interview". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. 3 July 2009. ^ Wole Soyinka (2007). Climate of Fear: The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World. Random House LLC. p. 119. ISBN 9780307430823. I already had certain agnostic tendencies—which would later develop into outright atheistic convictions— so it was not that I believed in any kind of divine protection. ^ Wole Soyinka (1981). Ake: The Years of Childhood. ISBN 9780679725404. Retrieved 14 March 2015. ^ Maya Jaggi, "The voice of conscience", The Guardian, 28 May 2007. ^ a b Ezebuiro, Peace (10 November 2015). "Wole Soyinka – Biography, Wife, Children, Family, Quick Facts". Answers Africa. Retrieved 10 September 2020. ^ Lyn Innes (26 March 2017). "Molly Mahood obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 March 2017. ^ James Gibbs (eds), Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka, Three Continents Press, 1980, p. 21. ^ "Wole Soyinka | Biography, Plays, Books, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 September 2020. ^ Lindfors, Bernth (September 1974). "Popular Literature for an African Elite". The Journal of Modern African Studies. Cambridge University Press. 12 (3): 471–486. ^ James Gibbs (1986). Wole Soyinka. Basingstoke: Macmillan. p. 3. ISBN 9780333305287. ^ "Wole Soyinka", The New York Times, 22 July 2009. ^ "Wole Soyinka". African Biography. Detroit, MI: Gale (published 2 December 2006). 1999. ISBN 978-0-7876-2823-9. ^ "Wole Soyinka", Book Rags (n.d.) ^ "Ulli Beier" (obituary), The Telegraph, 12 May 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2012. ^ a b Peter Benson, Black Orpheus, Transition, and Modern Cultural Awakening in Africa, University of California Press, 1986, p. 30. ISBN 9780520054189. ^ a b America, P. E. N. (16 April 2012). "Case Histories: Wole Soyinka". PEN America. Retrieved 29 September 2020. ^ Uzor Maxim Uzoatu (5 October 2013). "The Essential Soyinka Timeline". Premium Times. Retrieved 10 September 2019. ^ "WOLE SOYINKA, Nigeria's First Nobel Laureate". Abiyamo. 13 July 2013. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2013. ^ Obiajuru Maduakor (1986). "Soyinka as a Literary Critic". Research in African Literatures. 17 (1): 1–38. JSTOR 3819421. ^ "Tigritude". This Analog Life. 5 August 2013. Retrieved 9 October 2018. ^ Douglas Killam and Ruth Rowe (eds), The Companion to African Literature, Oxford: James Currey/Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000, p. 275. ^ Margaret Busby, "Marvels of the holy hour", The Guardian, 26 May 2007. ^ "Commonwealth Arts Festival", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre. ^ "Road, The", Black Plays Archive, National Theatre. ^ David Murphy, "Performing Global African Culture and Citizenship: Major Pan-African Cultural Festivals from Dakar 1966 to FESTAC 1977", Tate Papers, No. 30, 2018. ^ "Wole Soyinka: Nigeria's Nobel Laureate", African Voices, CNN, 27 July 2009. ^ a b Wole Soyinka 2006, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, p. 6. ^ a b Killam and Rowe (eds), The Companion to African Literature (2000), p. 276. ^ Christopher J. Lee, "Reading Wole Soyinka's 'Madmen and Specialists' in a Time of Pandemic", Warscapes, 25 March 2020. ^ "Wole Soyinka | Biographical", The Nobel Prize. ^ "Honorary Degree", Leeds African Studies Bulletin 19 (November 1973), pp. 1–2. [Professor Soyinka receiving the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the Chancellor, HRH the Duchess of Kent, on Thursday 17 May 1973 – image from 'Nobel Prize for Leeds Graduate', The Reporter (the University of Leeds), 258, 24 October 1986.] ^ "Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka joins UJ as visiting professor". Vanguard News. 28 March 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2020. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 29 September 2020. ^ Gibbs (1986). Wole Soyinka. Macmillan. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9781349182091. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 | Wole Soyinka", Nobelprize.org, 23 August 2010. ^ "Wole Soyinka: A Chronology". African Postcolonial Literature in English. Retrieved 12 December 2013. ^ Dasenbrock, Reed Way (January 1987). "Wole Soyinka's Nobel Prize". World Literature Today. 61 (1). ^ Petri Liukkonen. "Wole Soyinka". Books and Writers. Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015. ^ French, Howard W. (13 March 1997). "Nigerian Nobel Winner Faces Treason Charges". The New York Times. ^ "Nigerian novelist charged with treason". The Washington Post. 13 March 1997. ^ Roberts, James (23 October 2011). "Nobel winner charged with treason". The Independent. ^ "International Parliament of Writers". Seven Stories Press. Retrieved 6 April 2014. ^ "Wole Soyinka, Writer 'Rights and Relativity: The Interplay of Cultures'". Avenali lecture; The University of California, Berkeley. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2013. ^ a b Eniwoke Ibagere, "Nigeria's Soyinka back on stage", BBC News, 6 August 2005. ^ S. P. Somtow, "Why artistic freedom matters" Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Nation, 16 November 2006. ^ Duncan Gardham, "Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says England is 'cesspit' of extremism", The Daily Telegraph, 1 February 2010. ^ a b "Wole Soyinka's International Humanist Award acceptance speech – full text". International Humanist and Ethical Union. 12 August 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2015. ^ a b "Wole Soyinka wins International Humanist Award". British Humanist Association. 10 August 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2015. ^ "Fighting between Nigerian farmers and herders is getting worse". The Economist. 7 June 2018. ^ The Who's Who of Nobel Prize Winners, 1901–1995. Oryx Press. 1996. p. 89. ISBN 9780897748995. Retrieved 4 April 2015. ^ "Nobel Laureate Soyinka's Daughter Dies". New York: Sahara Reporters. 29 December 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2014. ^ "Wole Soyinka". NNDB. Retrieved 28 November 2014. ^ Wole Oyebade; Charles Coffie Gyamfi (25 November 2014). "Nigeria: My Battle With Prostate Cancer – Wole Soyinka". The Guardian. Lagos. Retrieved 4 April 2015 – via All Africa. ^ "Wole Soyinka Lecture Series". National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity). Retrieved 25 November 2014. ^ "History of NAS". www.nas-int.org. National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity). Archived from the original on 17 February 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2014. ^ "Naija 7 wonders commends Wole Soyinka for Benin Moat visit", The Nation, 2 March 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2014. ^ "Lagos Black Festival: From Imitation: Tune to Indigenous Innovative music" Archived 1 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, This Day Live, 4 May 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2014. ^ "Humanists UK welcomes new patron, Wole Soyinka". Humanists UK. 12 August 2020. ^ A. B. Assensoh and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh, "Celebrating Soyinka at 80", New African, 25 June 2014. ^ Afam Akeh, "Wole Soyinka at 80", Centre for African Poetry, 22 July 2015. ^ Adedun (18 August 2018). "ONYEKA NWELUE'S NEW FILM FEATURE 'WOLE SOYINKA: A GOD AND THE BIAFRANS' TO BE PREVIEWED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY JULY 13TH". Simple. Retrieved 18 August 2018. ^ "ADAMU USMAN GARKO". WRR PUBLISHERS LTD. 10 December 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2020. ^ Honorary Degree, Leeds African Studies Bulletin 19 (November 1973), pp. 1–2. ^ "Current RSL Fellows". The Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 5 April 2017. ^ "SOAS Honorary Fellows". SOAS. ^ Eric Quiñones (31 May 2005). "Princeton University – Princeton awards six honorary degrees". Princeton.edu. Retrieved 21 August 2010. ^ "Call national conference on Alamieyeseigha – Soyinka". Sunday Tribune. 27 November 2005. Archived from the original on 3 January 2006. Retrieved 13 December 2005. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. ^ "Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards – The 80th Annual". ^ "Nobel Laureate prize winner, Prof Wole Soyinka, joins UJ", University of Johannesburg, 28 March 2017. ^ siteadmin (30 July 2018). "UI Renames Its Arts Theatre 'Wole Soyinka Theatre'". Sahara Reporters. Retrieved 30 July 2018. ^ Sowole, Adeniyi (26 November 2018). "Awards: FUNAAB My Last Bus Stop, Says Soyinka". Olajide Fabamise. Leadership. Retrieved 5 March 2019. ^ "Wole Soyinka". Writer's History. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014. ^ Adie Vanessa Offiong (23 August 2015). "Soyinka's 'Childe Internationale' for stage in Abuja". DailyTrust. ^ James Gibbs; Bernth Lindfors (1993). Research on Wole Soyinka (Comparative studies in African/Caribbean literature series). Africa World Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-865-4321-92. ^ "Sixty-Six Books, One Hundred Artists, One New Theatre", Bush Theatre, October 2011. ^ Alison Flood, "Wole Soyinka to publish first novel in almost 50 years", The Guardian, 28 October 2020. ^ Thomas Cassirer; Wole Soyinka (1978). "Myth, Literature and the African World by Wole Soyinka. Review". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. Boston University African Studies Center. 11 (4): 755–757. doi:10.2307/217214. JSTOR 217214. ^ Wole Soyinka (1993). The Blackman and the Veil: A Century on; And, Beyond the Berlin Wall: Lectures Delivered by Wole Soyinka on 31 August and 1 September 1990. SEDCO. ISBN 978-9964-72-121-3. Retrieved 28 November 2014. ^ New Imperialism By Wole Soyinka. Mkuki na Nyota Publishers. 2009. ISBN 978-9987-08-055-7. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014. ^ Wole Soyinka (November 2012). Of Africa. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300-14-046-0. ^ Adam Hochschild (22 November 2012). "Assessing Africa – 'Of Africa,' by Wole Soyinka". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2014. Further reading[edit] James Gibbs (1980). Critical Perspective on Wole Soyinka (Critical Perspectives). Three Continents Press. ISBN 978-0-914478-49-2. James Gibbs (1986). Wole Soyinka. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333305287. Eldred Jones (1987). The Writing of Wole Soyinka. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-435080-21-1. M. Rajeshwar (1990). Novels of Wole Soyinka. Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division. ISBN 978-8-185218-21-2. Derek Wright (1996). Wole Soyinka : Life, Work, and Criticism. York Press. ISBN 978-1-896761-01-5. Gerd Meuer (2008). Journeys around and with Kongi - half a century on the road with Wole Soyinka: a pan-afropean or pan-eurafrican book. Reche. ISBN 978-3-929566-73-4. Bankole Olayebi (2004), WS: A Life in Full, Bookcraft; biography of Soyinka. Ilori, Oluwakemi Atanda (2016), The theatre of Wole Soyinka: Inside the Liminal World of Myth, Ritual and Postcoloniality. PhD thesis, University of Leeds. Mpalive-Hangson Msiska (2007), Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka (Cross/Cultures 93). Amsterdam-New York, NY: Editions Rodopi B.V. ISBN 978-9042022584 Yemi D. Ogunyemi (2009), The Literary/Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka. ISBN 1-60836-463-1 Yemi D. Ogunyemi (2017), The Aesthetic and Moral Art of Wole Soyinka (Academica Press, London-Washington) ISBN 978-1-68053-034-6 Carpenter, C. A. (1981). "Studies of Wole Soyinka's Drama: An International Bibliography". Modern Drama 24(1), 96–101. doi:10.1353/mdr.1981.0042. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka papers, 1966–1996. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Appearances on C-SPAN Wole Soyinka on Nobelprize.org "Wole Soyinka" Profile, Presidential Lectures, Stanford University v t e Works by Wole Soyinka Plays The Swamp Dwellers The Lion and the Jewel The Trials of Brother Jero A Dance of the Forests The Strong Breed Kongi's Harvest The Road The Bacchae of Euripides Madmen and Specialists Camwood on the Leaves Jero's Metamorphosis Death and the King's Horseman Opera Wonyosi Requiem for a Futurologist A Play of Giants A Scourge of Hyacinths The Beatification of the Area Boy King Baabu Etiki Revu Wetin Sixty Six Screenplay Kongi's Harvest (film) Novels The Interpreters (1965) Season of Anomy (1973) Related articles Ẹni Ògún v t e John Whiting Award 1967–1969 Tom Stoppard for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Wole Soyinka for The Interpreters (shared) (1967) Peter Nichols for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967) Peter Barnes for The Ruling Class and Edward Bond for Narrow Road to the Deep North (shared) (1968) Howard Brenton for Christie in Love (1969) 1970–1979 Freehold Company and Peter Hulton (joint) for Freehold on Antigone (1970) Mustapha Matura for As Time Goes By (1971) Heathcote Williams for AC/DC (1972) John Arden (1973) David Rudkin (1974) David Edgar for Destiny (1975) David Lan for The Winter Dancers (1976) David Halliwell and Snoo Wilson for The Glad Hand (shared) (1978) Stephen Bill (1979) 1980–1989 David Pownall for Beef (1981) Karim Alrawi for Migrations (1982) Peter Flannery for Our Friends in the North (1983) Ron Hutchinson for The Rat in the Skull (1984) Guy Hibbert for On the Edge and Heidi Thomas for Shamrocks & Crocodiles (shared) (1985) Nick Dear for The Art of Success (1986) Iain Heggie for American Bagpipes (1988) Billy Roche for A Handful of Stars (1989) 1990–1999 Lucy Gannon for Keeping Tom Nice (1990) Terry Johnson for Imagine Drowning (1991) Rod Wooden for Your Home in the West (1992) Martin Crimp for The Treatment and Helen Edmundson for The Clearing (shared) (1993) Jonathan Harvey for Beautiful Thing (1994) Joe Penhall for Some Voices (1995) Ayub Khan-Din for East is East (1996) Ann Coburn for Get Up and Tie Your Fingers (1997) Roy Williams for Starstruck (1998/9) 2000–2009 David Greig for The Cosmonaut's Last Message ... and Tanika Gupta for The Waiting Room (shared) (2000) Zinnie Harris for Further than the Furthest Thing (2001) Peter Rumney for Jumping on my Shadow (2002) Rona Munro for Iron (2003) Owen McCafferty for Scenes from the Big Picture (2004) Fin Kennedy for How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found (2005) James Philips for The Rubenstein Kiss and Fraser Grace for Breakfast with Mugabe (shared) (2006) Dennis Kelly for Taking Care of Baby (2007) Bryony Lavery for Stockholm (2008) Alexi Kaye Campbell for The Pride (2009) 2010–9999 Tim Crouch for The Author and Lucy Kirkwood for It Felt Empty When the Heart Went at First but It Is Alright Now (shared) (2010) v t e Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1901–1925 1901: Sully Prudhomme 1902: Theodor Mommsen 1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1904: Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz 1906: Giosuè Carducci 1907: Rudyard Kipling 1908: Rudolf Eucken 1909: Selma Lagerlöf 1910: Paul Heyse 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann 1913: Rabindranath Tagore 1914 1915: Romain Rolland 1916: Verner von Heidenstam 1917: Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan 1918 1919: Carl Spitteler 1920: Knut Hamsun 1921: Anatole France 1922: Jacinto Benavente 1923: W. B. Yeats 1924: Władysław Reymont 1925: George Bernard Shaw 1926–1950 1926: Grazia Deledda 1927: Henri Bergson 1928: Sigrid Undset 1929: Thomas Mann 1930: Sinclair Lewis 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt 1932: John Galsworthy 1933: Ivan Bunin 1934: Luigi Pirandello 1935 1936: Eugene O'Neill 1937: Roger Martin du Gard 1938: Pearl S. Buck 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944: Johannes V. Jensen 1945: Gabriela Mistral 1946: Hermann Hesse 1947: André Gide 1948: T. S. Eliot 1949: William Faulkner 1950: Bertrand Russell 1951–1975 1951: Pär Lagerkvist 1952: François Mauriac 1953: Winston Churchill 1954: Ernest Hemingway 1955: Halldór Laxness 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez 1957: Albert Camus 1958: Boris Pasternak 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo 1960: Saint-John Perse 1961: Ivo Andrić 1962: John Steinbeck 1963: Giorgos Seferis 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award) 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias 1968: Yasunari Kawabata 1969: Samuel Beckett 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1971: Pablo Neruda 1972: Heinrich Böll 1973: Patrick White 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson 1975: Eugenio Montale 1976–2000 1976: Saul Bellow 1977: Vicente Aleixandre 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer 1979: Odysseas Elytis 1980: Czesław Miłosz 1981: Elias Canetti 1982: Gabriel García Márquez 1983: William Golding 1984: Jaroslav Seifert 1985: Claude Simon 1986: Wole Soyinka 1987: Joseph Brodsky 1988: Naguib Mahfouz 1989: Camilo José Cela 1990: Octavio Paz 1991: Nadine Gordimer 1992: Derek Walcott 1993: Toni Morrison 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe 1995: Seamus Heaney 1996: Wisława Szymborska 1997: Dario Fo 1998: José Saramago 1999: Günter Grass 2000: Gao Xingjian 2001–present 2001: V. S. Naipaul 2002: Imre Kertész 2003: J. M. Coetzee 2004: Elfriede Jelinek 2005: Harold Pinter 2006: Orhan Pamuk 2007: Doris Lessing 2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio 2009: Herta Müller 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa 2011: Tomas Tranströmer 2012: Mo Yan 2013: Alice Munro 2014: Patrick Modiano 2015: Svetlana Alexievich 2016: Bob Dylan 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro 2018: Olga Tokarczuk 2019: Peter Handke 2020: Louise Glück v t e 1986 Nobel Prize laureates Chemistry Dudley R. Herschbach (United States) Yuan T. Lee (United States) John Polanyi (Canada) Literature Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) Peace Elie Wiesel (United States) Physics Ernst Ruska (Germany) Gerd Binnig (Germany) Heinrich Rohrer (Switzerland) Physiology or Medicine Stanley Cohen (United States) Rita Levi-Montalcini (United States/Italy) Economic Sciences James M. Buchanan (United States) Nobel Prize recipients 1990 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 v t e Recipients of the Mondello Prize Single Prize for Literature: Bartolo Cattafi (1975) • Achille Campanile (1976) • Günter Grass (1977) Special Jury Prize: Denise McSmith (1975) • Stefano D'Arrigo (1977) • Jurij Trifonov (1978) • Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1979) • Pietro Consagra (1980) • Ignazio Buttitta, Angelo Maria e Ela Ripellino (1983) • Leonardo Sciascia (1985) • Wang Meng (1987) • Mikhail Gorbaciov (1988) • Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, Lu Tongliu (1990) • Fernanda Pivano (1992) • Associazione Scrittori Cinesi (1993) • Dong Baoucum, Fan Boaci, Wang Huanbao, Shi Peide, Chen Yuanbin (1995) • Xu Huainzhong, Xiao Xue, Yu Yougqnan, Qin Weinjung (1996) • Khushwant Singh (1997) • Javier Marías (1998) • Francesco Burdin (2001) • Luciano Erba (2002) • Isabella Quarantotti De Filippo (2003) • Marina Rullo (2006) • Andrea Ceccherini (2007) • Enrique Vila-Matas (2009) • Francesco Forgione (2010) First narrative work: Carmelo Samonà (1978) • Fausta Garavini (1979) First poetic work: Giovanni Giuga (1978) • Gilberto Sacerdoti (1979) Prize for foreign literature: Milan Kundera (1978) • N. Scott Momaday (1979) • Juan Carlos Onetti (1980) • Tadeusz Konwicki (1981) Prize for foreign poetry: Jannis Ritsos (1978) • Joseph Brodsky (1979) • Juan Gelman (1980) • Gyula Illyés (1981) First work: Valerio Magrelli (1980) • Ferruccio Benzoni, Stefano Simoncelli, Walter Valeri, Laura Mancinelli (1981) • Jolanda Insana (1982) • Daniele Del Giudice (1983) • Aldo Busi (1984) • Elisabetta Rasy, Dario Villa (1985) • Marco Lodoli, Angelo Mainardi (1986) • Marco Ceriani, Giovanni Giudice (1987) • Edoardo Albinati, Silvana La Spina (1988) • Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri (1990) • Anna Cascella (1991) • Marco Caporali, Nelida Milani (1992) • Silvana Grasso, Giulio Mozzi (1993) • Ernesto Franco (1994) • Roberto Deidier (1995) • Giuseppe Quatriglio, Tiziano Scarpa (1996) • Fabrizio Rondolino (1997) • Alba Donati (1998) • Paolo Febbraro (1999) • Evelina Santangelo (2000) • Giuseppe Lupo (2001) • Giovanni Bergamini, Simona Corso (2003) • Adriano Lo Monaco (2004) • Piercarlo Rizzi (2005) • Francesco Fontana (2006) • Paolo Fallai (2007) • Luca Giachi (2008) • Carlo Carabba (2009) • Gabriele Pedullà (2010) Foreign author: Alain Robbe-Grillet (1982) • Thomas Bernhard (1983) • Adolfo Bioy Casares (1984) • Bernard Malamud (1985) • Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1986) • Doris Lessing (1987) • V. S. Naipaul (1988) • Octavio Paz (1989) • Christa Wolf (1990) • Kurt Vonnegut (1991) • Bohumil Hrabal (1992) • Seamus Heaney (1993) • J. M. Coetzee (1994) • Vladimir Vojnovič (1995) • David Grossman (1996) • Philippe Jaccottet (1998) • Don DeLillo (1999) • Aleksandar Tišma (2000) • Nuruddin Farah (2001) • Per Olov Enquist (2002) • Adunis (2003) • Les Murray (2004) • Magda Szabó (2005) • Uwe Timm (2006) • Bapsi Sidhwa (2007) • Viktor Erofeev (2009) • Edmund White (2010) • Javier Cercas (2011) • Elizabeth Strout (2012) • Péter Esterházy (2013) • Joe R. Lansdale (2014) • Emmanuel Carrère (2015) • Marilynne Robinson (2016) • Cees Nooteboom (2017) Italian Author: Alberto Moravia (1982) • Vittorio Sereni alla memoria (1983) • Italo Calvino (1984) • Mario Luzi (1985) • Paolo Volponi (1986) • Luigi Malerba (1987) • Oreste del Buono (1988) • Giovanni Macchia (1989) • Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa (1990) • Andrea Zanzotto (1991) • Ottiero Ottieri (1992) • Attilio Bertolucci (1993) • Luigi Meneghello (1994) • Fernando Bandini, Michele Perriera (1995) • Nico Orengo (1996) • Giuseppe Bonaviri, Giovanni Raboni (1997) • Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Alessandro Parronchi (1999) • Elio Bartolini (2000) • Roberto Alajmo (2001) • Andrea Camilleri (2002) • Andrea Carraro, Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger (2003) • Maurizio Bettini, Giorgio Montefoschi, Nelo Risi (2004) • pr. Raffaele Nigro, sec. Maurizio Cucchi, ter. Giuseppe Conte (2005) • pr. Paolo Di Stefano, sec. Giulio Angioni (2006) • pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. Toni Maraini, ter. Andrea Di Consoli (2007) • pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga (2008) • pr. Mario Desiati, sec. Osvaldo Guerrieri, ter. Gregorio Scalise (2009) • pr. Lorenzo Pavolini, sec. Roberto Cazzola, ter. (2010) • pr. Eugenio Baroncelli, sec. Milo De Angelis, ter. Igiaba Scego (2011) • pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. Paolo Di Paolo, ter. Davide Orecchio (2012) • pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. Walter Siti (2013) • pr. Irene Chias, sec. Giorgio Falco, ter. Francesco Pecoraro (2014) • pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. Letizia Muratori, ter. Marco Missiroli (2015) • pr. Marcello Fois, sec. Emanuele Tonon, ter. Romana Petri (2016) • pr. Stefano Massini, sec. Alessandro Zaccuri, ter. Alessandra Sarchi (2017) "Five Continents" Award: Kōbō Abe, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Germaine Greer, Wilson Harris, José Saramago (1992) • Kenzaburō Ōe (1993) • Stephen Spender (1994) • Thomas Keneally, Alberto Arbasino (1996) • Margaret Atwood, André Brink, David Malouf, Romesh Gunesekera, Christoph Ransmayr (1997) "Palermo bridge for Europe" Award: Dacia Maraini (1999), Premio Palermo ponte per il Mediterraneo Alberto Arbasino (2000) "Ignazio Buttitta" Award: Nino De Vita (2003) • Attilio Lolini (2005) • Roberto Rossi Precerotti (2006) • Silvia Bre (2007) Supermondello Tiziano Scarpa (2009) • Michela Murgia (2010) • Eugenio Baroncelli (2011) • Davide Orecchio (2012) • Valerio Magrelli (2013) • Giorgio Falco (2014) • Marco Missiroli (2015) • Romana Petri (2016) • Stefano Massini (2017) Special award of the President: Ibrahim al-Koni (2009) • Emmanuele Maria Emanuele (2010) • Antonio Calabrò (2011) Poetry prize: Antonio Riccardi (2010) Translation Award: Evgenij Solonovic (2010) Identity and dialectal literatures award: Gialuigi Beccaria e Marco Paolini (2010) Essays Prize: Marzio Barbagli (2010) Mondello for Multiculturality Award: Kim Thúy (2011) Mondello Youths Award: Claudia Durastanti (2011) • Edoardo Albinati (2012) • Alessandro Zaccuri (2017) "Targa Archimede", Premio all'Intelligenza d'Impresa: Enzo Sellerio (2011) Prize for Literary Criticism: Salvatore Silvano Nigro (2012) • Maurizio Bettini (2013) • Enrico Testa (2014) • Ermanno Cavazzoni (2015) • Serena Vitale (2016) • Antonio Prete (2017) Award for best motivation: Simona Gioè (2012) Special award for travel literature: Marina Valensise (2013) Special Award 40 Years of Mondello: Gipi (2014) Authority control BIBSYS: 90096482 BNE: XX1722082 BNF: cb119253009 (data) CANTIC: a1099452x CiNii: DA01294268 GND: 118615807 ICCU: IT\ICCU\CFIV\041781 ISNI: 0000 0001 2283 7862 LCCN: n80038437 LNB: 000000068 NDL: 00475387 NKC: jn20000605097 NLA: 36207947 NLI: 000125138 NLK: KAC199626017 NSK: 000023467 PLWABN: 9810634937405606 RERO: 02-A000154478 SELIBR: 226683 SNAC: w6jw8j29 SUDOC: 027145670 Trove: 1229376 VIAF: 105939176 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n80038437 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wole_Soyinka&oldid=1003372443" Categories: 1934 births Living people 20th-century Nigerian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century essayists 20th-century Nigerian novelists 20th-century Nigerian philosophers 20th-century Nigerian poets 20th-century translators 21st-century dramatists and playwrights 21st-century essayists 21st-century Nigerian novelists 21st-century Nigerian poets Academics of the University of Oxford Alumni of the University of Leeds Alumni of University of London Worldwide Alumni of the University of London Cancer survivors Commanders of the Order of the Federal Republic Cornell University faculty Emory University faculty English-language writers from Nigeria Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Former Anglicans Government College, Ibadan alumni Granta people Harvard University faculty Loyola Marymount University faculty New York University faculty Nigerian atheists Nigerian Civil War prisoners of war Nigerian dramatists and playwrights Nigerian essayists Nigerian expatriate academics in the United States Nigerian expatriates in the United Kingdom Nigerian humanists Nigerian male novelists Nigerian male poets Nigerian memoirists Nigerian Nobel laureates Nigerian philosophers Nigerian prisoners and detainees Nigerian speculative fiction writers Nobel laureates in Literature Obafemi Awolowo University faculty Political philosophers Prisoners and detainees of Nigeria Ransome-Kuti family Recipients of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award University of Ibadan alumni University of Lagos faculty University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty Writers from Abeokuta Yale University faculty Yoruba–English translators Yoruba academics Yoruba dramatists and playwrights Yoruba novelists Yoruba philosophers Yoruba poets Yoruba writers People educated at Abeokuta Grammar School Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Use British English from October 2012 Use dmy dates from November 2020 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from January 2021 Articles with unsourced statements from May 2020 Wikipedia articles needing clarification from April 2012 Nobelprize template using Wikidata property P8024 Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ICCU identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with RERO identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages Afrikaans አማርኛ العربية Aragonés Asturianu Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه বাংলা Bân-lâm-gú Беларуская Беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎ Български Brezhoneg Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Gaeilge Gàidhlig Galego 한국어 Hausa Հայերեն हिन्दी Hrvatski Ido Igbo Ilokano Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano עברית Jawa Kabɩyɛ ქართული Қазақша Kiswahili Kotava Kurdî Latina Latviešu Lietuvių Lingua Franca Nova Magyar Malagasy മലയാളം مصرى Bahasa Melayu Mirandés Монгол Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk Occitan Oʻzbekcha/ўзбекча ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی Polski Português Română Русский Scots Simple English Slovenčina Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska தமிழ் Татарча/tatarça Türkçe Українська اردو Tiếng Việt 吴语 Yorùbá 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 28 January 2021, at 17:45 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement