Wole Soyinka

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Wole Soyinka

Nigerian author

Also known as: Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Nov 26, 2024 • Article History

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In full:: Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka

Born:: July 13, 1934, Abeokuta, Nigeria (age 90)

Awards And Honors:: Nobel Prize

Notable Works:: “A Dance of the Forests”; “A Shuttle in the Crypt”; “Art, Dialogue, and Outrage”; “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth”; “Death and the King’s Horseman”; “Idanre and Other Poems”; “Jero’s Metamorphosis”; “Kongi’s Harvest”; “Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems”; “Myth, Literature, and the African World”; “Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known”; “Season of Anomy”; “The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness”; “The Interpreters”; “The Lion and the Jewel”; “The Open Sore of a Continent”; “The Road”; “The Strong Breed”; “The Trials of Brother Jero”; “You Must Set Forth at Dawn”

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News •

Rushdie, Ernaux and Soyinka among authors calling for release of Franco-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal • Nov. 25, 2024, 11:28 PM ET (The Guardian)

Wole Soyinka (born July 13, 1934, Abeokuta, Nigeria) is a Nigerian playwright and political activist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He sometimes wrote of modern West Africa in a satirical style, but his serious intent and his belief in the evils inherent in the exercise of power were usually evident in his work as well. A member of the Yoruba people, Soyinka attended Government College and University College in Ibadan before graduating in 1958 with a degree in English from the University of Leeds in England. Upon his return to Nigeria, he founded an acting company ...(100 of 785 words)

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