Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka[1]GCON (Listenⓘ; born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, playwright, and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty-five plays and five memoirs.[2] He also wrote two translated works and many articles and short stories for many newspapers and periodicals. He was awarded the1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence".[3]
Born into anAnglicanYoruba family in Aké,Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education atGovernment College, Ibadan and proceeded to theUniversity College Ibadan. During his education, he co-founded thePyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at theUniversity 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. In the UK, he started writing short stories and making records for theBBC Lecture series. He wrote many plays which were performed on radios and in theatres in Nigeria and the UK, especially theRoyal Court Theatre.
His mother Grace's extended family, the Ransome-Kutis, were a powerful Nigerian dynasty that has been described as Nigeria's answer to theKennedy family in the United States. Their founding patriarch, the Anglican priestJ.J. Ransome-Kuti, was a pioneering figure in his country's music recording industry in the 1920s.[8]
Soyinka relocated from Nigeria to England in 1954 to continue his studies in English literature at theUniversity of Leeds under the supervision ofG. Wilson Knight.[12] The decision to study abroad at that time when a master degree study was not available in Ibadan, was through Joyce M. Green, an English woman who joined the University College, Ibadan fromCambridge in 1950, and who had been one of Soyinka's teachers and had provided him with a well-worded reference to Leeds.[13] At Leeds University, he served as the editor of the university's satirical magazine,The Eagle, in which he wrote a column on academic life. In August 1955, he started recording forBBC Lecture and wrote many short stories. In 1957, he won the annual oratory competition run by the University.[14]
TheRoyal Court Theatre in 2020. Most of Soyinka's early plays were performed in the theatre.
Soyinka remained inLeeds after getting his BA honours in English in 1957.[2] In 1957, he began writing his first play,The Swamp Dwellers andThe Lion and the Jewel. Soyinka moved to London and worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. He led the Nigerian Drama Group that performedThe Swamp Dwellers in 1958. During that period, his two plays were performed inIbadan, Nigeria. In 1957, his play,The Invention, was produced atLondon'sRoyal Court Theatre, and was his first work to be produced there.[15] During this period, he wrote poems, including "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which appeared inBlack Orpheus. In 1959, Soyinka returned to Nigeria after receiving aRockefeller Research Fellowship for his research on African theatre. In November of the same year, he replacedJanheinz Jahn as the co-editor ofBlack Orpheus.[16] In 1960, he completed his radio play,Camwood on the Leaves, and his playThe Trials of Brother Jero premiered in the Mellanby Hall residence of University College Ibadan in April 1960. He formed the 1960s Mask, a theatre group. His play,A Dance of The Forest, became the official play for theNigerian Independence Day and on 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos.[17]
Soyinka's first full-length play,My Father's Burden, was directed byOlusegun Olusola and it was featured on theWestern Nigeria Television on 6 August 1960.[18] In 1962, Soyinka wrote essays that defended Nigerian literacy during that period including "Death and the King's Horsemen" and "Towards a True Theater", which were published inTransition Magazine.[19] In the same year, he was appointed lecturer atObafemi Awolowo University inIfẹ. In 1963, his first feature-length movie,Culture in Transition, was released. Soyinka resigned from his university post in 1964, as a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the authorities. He claimed the university's authorities aligned the institution with the unpopular government ofSamuel Ladoke Akintola. During that period, he producedThe Lion and the Jewel in a season of plays in English andYoruba as well as formed The Orisun Theatre Company, a theatre group.
In 1965, he produced satirical play,Before the Blackout. His play,Kongi's Harvest, premiered in August in Lagos. On 14 September 1965, his playThe Road premiered in London at theCommonwealth Arts Festival and at theTheatre Royal Stratford East. Soyinka was appointed as the senior lecturer at theUniversity of Lagos. Soon, his novel,The Interpreters, was published in London byAndré Deutsch. In the same year, he was arrested for the first time, charged with holding up a radio station at gunpoint and replacing the tape of a recorded speech by the premier ofWestern Region with a different tape containing accusations ofelectoral malpractice. He was released after some months of confinement as a result of protests by the international community of writers. He also wroteThe Detainee, a radio play forBBC in London.[20]
After becoming Chair of Drama at theUniversity of Ibadan, Soyinka became politically active. Following themilitary coup of January 1966, he secretly met withChukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of theSoutheastern Nigeria in an effort to avert theNigerian Civil War.[21] He also went to Ẹnugu, where he met his fellow Yoruba man, Victor Banjọ, who works with the Biafran government. Soyinka, who sought the support of Western Region military leaders, delivered Banjo's message toLieutenant ColonelOlusegun Obasanjo, who had recently been appointed as commanding officer for theWestern Region. Four evenings after Soyinka returned to the West, Biafran forces invaded the Midwest region. Following the occupation of the Midwest, Soyinka met Obasanjo to tell him the aim of Biafrans since Obasanjo had already decided to align with the Nigerian government. However Biafra's invasion of the Midwest resulted in retaliation by the federal government forces, and the civil war began. Obasanjo disclosed his meeting with Soyinka to the Nigerian government, who declared Soyinka as a betrayal, hence he was arrested by federal authorities and imprisoned for 22 months.[22] He wrote a significant body of poems and notes criticising the Nigerian government while in prison.[23]
In early 1967, his works,Kongi’s Harvest andIdanre and Other Poems were published. WithTom Stoppard, he received theJohn Whiting Award in London. He was also appointed Head of the School of Drama, University of Ibadan but unable to take up the position because of his imprisonment in August. Despite his imprisonment, his playThe Lion and The Jewel was produced inAccra, Ghana in September 1967. In November,The Trials of Brother Jero andThe Strong Breed were produced in the Greenwich Mews Theatre inNew York City by Off-Broadway.
In October 1969, few months before the Civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed.[25] For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend's farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. He wroteThe Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of thePentheus myth.[26] He also 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.[citation needed]
In 1970, he produced the playKongi's Harvest, while simultaneously adapting it as a film of the same title. In June 1970, he finished another play, calledMadmen and Specialists.[27] Together with the group of 15 actors of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the United States, to theEugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center inWaterford,Connecticut, where his latest play premiered.[citation needed]
In 1971, his poetry collectionA Shuttle in the Crypt was published.Madmen and Specialists was produced in Ibadan that year.[28] 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.[29]
In 1972, his novelSeason of Anomy and hisCollected Plays were both published byOxford University Press. His powerful autobiographical workThe Man Died, a collection of notes from prison, was also published that year.[33] He was awarded anHonoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds in 1973.[34] In the same year theNational Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the playThe Bacchae of Euripides,[26] and his playsCamwood on the Leaves andJero'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 atChurchill College, Cambridge[35] (1973–74)[30] and wroteDeath and the King's Horseman, which had its first reading at Churchill College.[citation needed]
In 1974, Oxford University Press issued hisCollected Plays, Volume II. In 1975, Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor forTransition Magazine, which was based in the Ghanaian capital ofAccra, where he moved.[29] He used his columns in the magazine to criticise the "negrophiles" (for instance, his article "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition") and military regimes. He protested against the military junta ofIdi 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 as Chair of Comparative Literature at theUniversity of Ife.[29]
In December 2017, Soyinka received theEurope Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category,[37][38] awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".[39] On 1 September 2022, Soyinka took up the appointment of Professor of Theatre atNew York University Abu Dhabi.[40][41]
In 1976, he published his poetry collectionOgun Abibiman, as well as a collection of essays entitledMyth, Literature and the African World.[42] 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 theInstitute of African Studies at theUniversity of Ghana inLegon. In October 1976, the French version ofThe Dance of The Forests was performed inDakar, while in Ife, his playDeath and The King's Horseman premiered.[citation needed]
Soyinka went on to establish another theatrical group, the Guerrilla Unit, which sought to engage directly with local communities. Its purpose was to help them reflect on their challenges and give voice to their grievances through short dramatic performances. In 1983, his playRequiem for a Futurologist had its first performance at the University of Ife. In July that year, one of his musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record entitledI Love My Country, on which several prominent Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka. In 1984, he directed the filmBlues for a Prodigal, which was screened at the University of Ife.[44] HisA Play of Giants was produced the same year.[citation needed]
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 PresidentShehu Shagari. When Shagari was replaced by the army generalMuhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with the military. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned his 1972 bookThe Man Died: Prison Notes.[45] In 1985, his playRequiem for a Futurologist was published in London byRex Collings.[46]
Soyinka was awarded theNobel Prize for Literature in 1986,[47][48] 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."[49] His Nobel acceptance speech, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was devoted to South African freedom-fighterNelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism ofapartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by theNational South African government.[citation needed]
In 1988, his collection of poemsMandela's Earth, and Other Poems was published, while in Nigeria another collection of essays, entitledArt, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture, appeared. In the same year, Soyinka accepted the position of Professor of African Studies and Theatre atCornell University.[50] In 1989, a third novel, inspired by his father's intellectual circle,Ìsarà: A Voyage around Essay, appeared ("Essay" being the nickname of his father S. A. Soyinka). In July 1991, theBBC African Service transmitted Soyinka's radio playA Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year (1992) inSiena (Italy), his playFrom Zia with Love had its premiere.[51] 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 fromHarvard University. The following year, another part of his autobiography appeared:Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946–1965). In 1995, his play,The Beatification of Area Boy, was published. In October 1994, he was appointedUNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.[52]
In November 1994, Soyinka fled from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the border withBenin,[53] and then went to the United States.[54] In 1996, his bookThe 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 GeneralSani Abacha.[55][56][57] 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, serving in the role from 1997 to 2000.[58][59] In 1999, a new volume of poems by Soyinka, entitledOutsiders, was released. That same year, a BBC-commissioned play calledDocument of Identity aired onBBC Radio 3, telling the lightly-fictionalized story of the problems his daughter's family encountered during a stopover inBritain when they fled Nigeria for the US in 1996; her son, Oseoba Airewele was born inLuton and became a stateless person.[60]
Soyinka's playKing Baabu premièred in Lagos in 2001,[61] a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship.[61] In 2002, a collection of his poems entitledSamarkand and Other Markets I Have Known was published byMethuen. In April 2006, his memoirYou Must Set Forth at Dawn was published byRandom House. In 2006 he cancelled his keynote speech for the annualS.E.A. Write Awards Ceremony inBangkok to protest theThai 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.[63] In the wake of theattempted bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States by a Nigerian student who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka questioned theBritish 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.[64] He supported the freedom of worship, but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence.[65]
In December 2020, Soyinka described2020 as the most challenging year in the nation'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 ofCOVID-19. Natural disasters had happened elsewhere, but how have you managed to take such in their strides?"[70]
September 2021 saw the publication ofChronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first novel in almost 50 years, described in theFinancial Times as "a brutally satirical look at power and corruption in Nigeria, told in the form of a whodunnit involving three university friends."[71] Reviewing the book inThe 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."[72]
Around July 2023, Soyinka came under severe criticism, after writing an open letter to the Emir of Ilorin,Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, over the cancellation of the Isese festival proposed by anOsun priestess, Omolara Olatunji.[77]
Two films have been made about this period of his life.The Man Died, directed byAwam Amkpa, is a feature film based on a fictionalized form of Soyinka's 1973 prison memoirs of the same title.[78][79]Ebrohimie Road, written and directed byKola Tubosun, explores the Ibadan house where Soyinka lived between 1967, when he returned to direct the School of Drama, and 1972, when he left for exile following his released from prison.[80]
Soyinka has been married three times and divorced twice. He has eight children from his three marriages and two other daughters. 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. Soyinka's first daughter Morenike was born in 1964.[citation needed] After they separated, he married a Nigerian librarian Olaide Idowu in 1963[81]. The couple had three daughters: Moremi, Iyetade (1965–2013),[82][83],Peyibomi and a son, Ilemakin. Soyinka's youngest daughter Amani was born in 1981[84]. Soyinka married Folake Doherty in 1989 and the couple have three sons: Tunlewa, Bojode and Eniara.[16][85]
On 15 July 2024, Oba Albert Adebose Mayungbe, the traditional monarch ofIsara-Remo conferred three traditional titles on Soyinka's children.[86]
In a book published in 2020,University College London academic, Caroline Davis, examined an archival evidence of theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding of African authors in the post-independence period.[91] A chapter of the book was titled "Wole Soyinka, the Transcription Centre, and the CIA", and focused on Soyinka's receipt of funding from CIA front organisations such as theFarfield Foundation and theTranscription Centre. The funding supported Soyinka's publishing and the global production of some of his theatre plays. The book states that even after the CIA's covert role in some of these initiatives was revealed in the 1960s, Soyinka had "unusually close ties to the US government even to the point of frequently meeting with US intelligence in the late 1970s". When the book was published, Soyinka denied having been a CIA agent.[92] Nigerian academic Adekeye Adebajo has argued in theJohannesburg Review of Books that Davis does not directly accuse Soyinka of being a CIA agent and that Soyinka's denials are therefore also misdirected.[93]
Soyinka is a vocal critic of PresidentDonald Trump.[94] In October 2025, he said that the United States had revoked his visa after comments he made characterizing Trump as "Idi Amin in white face".[95][96] He has also been banned from entering the US.[97]
SingerAdekunle Gold became the first musician to sell out the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Creative Arts in Lagos on 26 December 2025.[98]
The government ofOgun State postponed the unveiling of Wole Soyinka Train Station scheduled formerly for 3 January 2026.[99]
In 2025, a viral photo which circulated on social media was claimed to be Soyinka and a youngGbenga Daniel standing behind him. The image, according to netizens, depicted 'loyalty'. However, the image has been labelled false byDubawa, a fact-checking website.[100]
On 9 December 2025, Soyinka criticised the large number of armed security personnel that he saw accompanying Seyi Tinubu, the son of President Tinubu.[101][102]
Soyinka is a critic oforganized religion, particularlyChristianity andIslam, viewing them as human-created systems that can corrupt and limit potential, often leading to conflict and hypocrisy, though he acknowledges spirituality and usesYoruba mythology (in this case, Orisa worship) as a creative source, seeing deities as "companions" rather than deities to be worshipped, embracing his African roots while rejecting imposed faiths. He identifies as anatheist but a "spirit-sensitive" one, valuing humanity as the highest religion and findingAfrican traditional religions more authentic and less destructive than foreign ones.[103]
Soyinka is also a critique ofreligious extremism. In a 2012 essay titled "Religion Against Humanity", published byGranta, he labelled religion as the greatest enemy of humanity.[104] He toldChannels Television that he dislikes how religion is used to justify violence, flout laws, and create societal problems in Nigeria, calling it the "number one problem for Nigerians".[105]
The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was founded in 1994 by theNational Association of Seadogs, and according to the website, it is dedicated "to honouring one of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring literary icons: Wole Soyinka".[106] In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built a writers' enclave in Soyinka's honour at Adeyipo inIbadan,Oyo State.[107]
In 2018, theUniversity of Ibadan renamed her arts theatre as Wole Soyinka Theatre.[110] In commemoration of Nigeria's 65th Independence Day Anniversary on 1 October 2025, PresidentBola Tinubu renamed theNational Theatre as Wole Soyinka Center for Culture and Creative Arts.[111]
^"Honorary Degree", LeedsAfrican 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.]
.jpg)
.svg)
