Soyinka, Wole

Wole Soyinka (13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collection, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two translated works and many articles and short stories for many newspapers and periodicals. He is widely regarded as one of Africa's greatest writers and one of the world's most important dramatists. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence". Born into an Anglican Yoruba family in Aké, Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education at Government College, Ibadan and proceeded to the University College Ibadan. During his education, he founded the Pyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at the University of Leeds. During that period, he was the editor of the university's magazine, The Eagle, before becoming a full-time author in the 1950s. At UK he started writing short stories and making records for the BBC lecture. He wrote many plays which were performed in radios and theatres in Nigeria and UK especially the Royal Court Theatre. In 1958 he married a British woman whom he had met in Leeds. In 1963, after the divorce of the first wife, he married a Nigerian librarian, and subsequently, Folake Doherty in 1989. Many of Soyinka's novels and plays are set in Nigeria. He also wrote many satirical pieces, which he used to appeal to a wide public and sold in large numbers. He is also a poet; he did well in the writing poems and poetry collections. He achieved successes with his plays including The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Lion and the Jewel (1959), and The Invention, which was one his early plays to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka wrote many works including The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1973), Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, and Harmattan Haze on an African Spring. In July 2024, Bola Tinubu renamed the National Arts Theatre after Soyinka during his 90th birthday.