Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, turned 90 on July 13, 2024, and there has been an outpouring of well wishes from different parts of the world. TOFARATI IGE takes a look at the life and times of the respected writer, who is regarded as one of the most influential voices of his generation
Early days
On July 13, 1934, which was a Friday, the skies must have taken on a new hue. Indeed, it was not just any other date on the calendar, it was the day Africa’s first Black Nobel Laureate winner in Literature berthed on this side of the earthly divide.
Born in Abeokuta, in Colonial-era Nigeria, his father, who was an Anglican preacher and the headmaster of St. Peters School in the town, was said to have exposed him to the colonial administration, as well as traditional norms. … CONTINUE READING
Wole was the second of seven children, and his siblings were Atinuke, Femi, Yeside, Omofolabo and Kayode. His younger sister, Folashade, died on her first birthday.
His mother was one of the most prominent members of the influential Ransome-Kuti family, being the granddaughter of Rev. Canon J. J. Ransome-Kuti. Among Soyinka’s first cousins once removed were the musician and afrobeat creator, Fela Kuti; the human rights activist Beko Ransome-Kuti; politician, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti; and activist, Yemisi Ransome-Kuti.
He was raised in a religious family, attending church services and singing in the choir from an early age. The writer wrote extensively about his childhood in the 1981 book, Aké: The Years of Childhood.
Education
For his elementary education, he attended St. Peter’s Primary School, Abeokuta. From there, he attended Abeokuta Grammar School. He later moved to Government College in Ibadan, where he excelled academically and was involved in various literary activities.
For his tertiary education, he attended the University College, Ibadan; and the University of Leeds in England.
Career
Upon graduation from the university, Soyinka remained in Leeds. 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’.
In 1957, his play, The Invention, was the first of his works to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. 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, founded in 1957 by the German scholar, Ulli Beier, who had been teaching at the University of Ibadan at the time.
The prolific writer later received a Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College in Ibadan, for research on African theatre, and he returned to Nigeria. After its fifth issue in November 1959, Soyinka replaced Jahnheinz Jahn to become co-editor of Black Orpheus (its name derived from a 1948 essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, Orphée Noir, and published as a preface to Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache, edited by Léopold Senghor).
Wole produced his new satire, The Trials of Brother Jero, in the dining hall at Mellanby Hall of the University College Ibadan, in April 1960. That year, his work, A Dance of the Forest, a biting criticism of Nigeria’s political elites, won a contest as the official play for Nigeria’s Independence Day on October 1, 1960, which was premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. The play satirised the fledgling nation by showing that the present was 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.
In December 1962, Soyinka’s essay, Towards a True Theater, was published in Transition Magazine. He began teaching with the Department of English Language at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, present-day Osun State. 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 1965, his book, The Interpreters, ‘a complex but also vividly documentary novel’, was published in London by André Deutsch.
An activist is born
As time went on, Wole took an active role on Nigeria’s political scene and participated in its campaign for independence from British colonial rule.
In 1965, five years after the country gained Independence, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria regional elections. He alleged that there were irregularities that warranted the cancellations of the elections.
In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
In October 1969, when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed. For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend’s farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. While there, he wrote The Bacchae of Euripides, a reworking of the Pentheus myth.
He soon published in London a book of poetry, Poems from Prison. At the end of the year, he returned to his office as Chair of Drama at Ibadan.
Two films about this period of his life have been announced— The Man Died, directed by Awam Amkpa, a feature film based on a fictionalised form of Soyinka’s 1973 prison memoirs of the same title; and Ebrohimie Road, written and directed by Kola Tubosun, which takes a look at the house where Soyinka lived between 1967 when he arrived back in Ibadan to take on the directorship of the School of Drama and 1972, when he left for exile after being released from prison.
Over the years, 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.
During the despotic regime of General Sani Abacha between 1993 and 1998), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the Benin border.
Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him ‘in absentia’. When democracy was restored to the country in 1999, Soyinka returned.
Even under democratic rule, the Nobel Laureate has continued to speak truth to power.
In April 2007, Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread fraud and violence. In the wake of the attempting bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States by a Nigerian student who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka questioned the British government’s social logic in allowing every religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting that it was being abused by religious fundamentalists, thereby turning England into, in his view, a cesspit for the breeding of extremism. He supported the freedom of worship but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence.
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. The Congress theme was Freedom of Thought and Expression: Forging a 21st Century Enlightenment. He was awarded the 2014 International Humanist Award.
In recent times, Soyinka has opposed allowing herdsmen the ability to graze their cattle on open land, and believes these herdsmen should be declared terrorists to enable the restriction of their movements.
In December 2020, Soyinka described 2020 as the most challenging year in Nigeria’s history, saying, “With the turbulence that characterised year 2020, and as activities wind down, the mood has been repugnant and very negative. I don’t want to sound pessimistic but this is one of the most pessimistic years I have known in this nation and it wasn’t just because of COVID-19. Natural disasters had happened elsewhere, but how have you managed to take such in their strides?”
September 2021 saw the publication of Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka’s first novel in almost 50 years, described in the Financial Times as “a brutally satirical look at power and corruption in Nigeria, told in the form of a whodunnit involving three university friends.”
Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Ben Okri said, “It is Soyinka’s greatest novel, his revenge against the insanities of the nation’s ruling class and one of the most shocking chronicles of an African nation in the 21st century. It ought to be widely read.”
Accolades
In a statement titled, Professor Wole Soyinka at 90: Tribute to a national treasure and global icon, President Tinubu described the latter as a dogged fighter that deserved all the accolades coming his way.
The statement read in part, “Professor Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Literature Prize in 1986, deserves all the accolades, as he marks the milestone of 90 years on earth. Having beaten prostate cancer, this milestone is a fitting testament to his ruggedness as a person, and the significance of his work.
“It is also fitting we celebrate this national treasure while he is still with us. I am, accordingly, delighted to announce the decision of the Federal Government to rename the National Theatre in Iganmu, Surulere, as the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Creative Arts.”
In a bid to properly celebrate the iconic writer, there have been several activities to make the milestone age, including reenactment of some of the bard’s stage plays, movie screenings, and poetry recitations.
The Man Died, a feature film inspired by Soyinka’s prison notes was screened on Friday, July 12, in Lagos. Shot entirely in Lagos and Ibadan in late 2023, the 110 -minute feature is directed by culture scholar and academic, Awam Amkpa; and produced by popular filmmaker, Femi Odugbemi.
The film will also be screened on July 25 at The Africa Centre, London, United Kingdom, where it will feature as part of WS90— a nine-day programme of events, jointly organised by the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange and TAC still in commemoration of Soyinka’s birthday.
In a similar vein, a symposium, poetry readings and Gala night were held in honour of the cultural icon at the Academy of the Kingdom Of Morocco in Rabat, Morocco.
Held during the week, the event was attended by many of Soyinka’s admirers who wished him more years in good health.
Describing the birthday boy as a ‘literary giant’, the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, lauded Soyinka’s fidelity to the truth. The statement read in part, “On behalf of my family, the government, and the people of Lagos State, I extend warm felicitations to Nobel Laureate, Prof Oluwole Soyinka, on his 90th birthday. Prof Soyinka is a literary giant who has excelled across various genres of literature, with his extensive body of work serving as a touchstone in academic spheres worldwide. He is a source of immense pride for Nigeria, Africa, and the entire black community. A staunch champion of truth, justice, and fairness, Prof Soyinka has been a vocal advocate for democracy and accountable governance in Africa. As he enters his tenth decade, I offer my best wishes for his continued good health and many more years of dedicated service to Nigeria, Africa, and the world. May we also continue to draw from his profound wisdom and inspirational leadership.”
A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar also took to X to felicitate the iconic write. Using the titles of Soyinka’s works, Atiku wrote, “To truly celebrate Prof Wole Soyinka, You Must Set Forth at Dawn. And, that would be after a Telephone Conversation. The Man of Ake, despite all the Trials of Brother Jero, and at a prime age of 90, remains a virile hunter in our Forest of a Thousand Demons.
“Neither Death nor the King’s Horseman has stopped The Interpreter from his bountiful Kongi’s Harvest, and the Chronicles of his happy life on earth. Yet, The Man Lives, even in this Season of Anomy. Happy birthday and congratulations, Sir.”
Dapo Abiodun, the Governor of Soyinka’s home state of Ogun, also wrote, “Congratulations to Prof Soyinka on reaching the incredible milestone of 90 years. Throughout his lifetime, he has not only become a literary icon, but also a voice for social justice and human rights.
“His contributions to literature, theatre, and activism have left an indelible mark on the sand of history. Here’s to celebrate his remarkable achievements and wish him many more years of inspiration and impact.”
On his part, Soyinka stated that he never thought he would live to be 90 years old. While speaking with students who participated in the 2024 edition of the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange Programme held at his residence in Ijegba, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Soyinka stated that he never thought he would live to the ripe old age of 90.
-Punch
