Wole Soyinka (born July 13, 1934,Abeokuta, Nigeria) is a Nigerian playwright and political activist who received theNobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He was the first Black African to be awarded the prize and wascited by the Nobel Committee for his “vivid, often harrowing” works “marked by anevocative, poetically intensifieddiction.” Soyinka sometimes writes of modernWest Africa in a satirical style, but his serious intent and his belief in the evilsinherent in the exercise of power are usually evident in his work as well.

Background and early career

A member of theYoruba people, Soyinka attended Government College and University College inIbadan before graduating in 1958 with a degree in English from the University ofLeeds in England. Upon his return toNigeria, he founded an acting company and wrote his first important play,A Dance of the Forests (produced 1960; published 1963), for the Nigerian independence celebrations. The play satirizes the fledgling nation by stripping it ofromanticlegend and by showing that the present is no more a golden age than was the past.

Notable plays

Soyinka wrote several plays in a lighter vein, making fun of pompous, Westernized schoolteachers inThe Lion and the Jewel (first performed in Ibadan, 1959; published 1963) and mocking the clever preachers of upstart prayer-churches who grow fat on the credulity of their parishioners inThe Trials of Brother Jero (performed 1960; published 1963) andJero’s Metamorphosis (1973). But his more serious plays, such asThe Strong Breed (1963),Kongi’s Harvest (opened the first Festival of Negro Arts inDakar, 1966; published 1967),The Road (1965),From Zia, with Love (1992), and even theparodyKing Baabu (performed 2001; published 2002), reveal his disregard for Africanauthoritarian leadership and his disillusionment with Nigerian society as a whole.

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Poetry: First Lines

Other notable plays includeMadmen and Specialists (performed 1970; published 1971),Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), andThe Beatification of Area Boy (1995). In these and Soyinka’s other dramas, Western elements are skillfully fused with subject matter and dramatic techniques deeply rooted in Yorubafolklore and religion. Symbolism, flashback, and ingenious plotting contribute to a rich dramatic structure. His best works exhibit humor and fine poetic style as well as a gift forirony andsatire and for accurately matching thelanguage of his complex characters to their social position andmoral qualities.

In 2025 Soyinka’s seldom-produced playThe Swamp Dwellers, which was written in 1958, debutedOff-Broadway. Set in a home situated above a swamp in theNiger delta region, the play explores clashes between older and younger generations, tradition and modernity, and poverty and wealth.

Novels and poetry collections

Though he considers himself primarily a playwright, Soyinka also published the novelsThe Interpreters (1965),Season of Anomy (1973), andChronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (2021), the latter of which drew particular praise for its satirical take oncorruption in Nigeria. Upon its release, SoyinkatoldThe Guardian that he had attempted to complete it before the 60th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence (in 2020). He also said, “I wanted this to be my present to the nation, to the people who live here: both the governed and those who govern, the exploiters and the exploited.”

His several volumes ofpoetry includeIdanre, and Other Poems (1967) andPoems from Prison (1969; republished asA Shuttle in the Crypt, 1972), published together asEarly Poems (1998);Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988); andSamarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002). His verse ischaracterized by a precise command of language and a mastery oflyric, dramatic, and meditative poetic forms. He wrote a good deal ofPoems from Prison while he was jailed in 1967–69 for speaking out against the war brought on by the attempted secession ofBiafra from Nigeria.The Man Died (1972) is his prose account of his arrest and 22-month imprisonment.

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Of his speaking out against political injustice, Soyinkahas said, “I don’t consider it bravery. I always explain that it’s a question of being able to live with oneself.…Either one believes in something or one doesn’t. If you don’t believe in a thing and you go along with it, I find it impossible to be at peace with myself.”

Cultural criticism and memoirs

Soyinka’s principal critical work isMyth, Literature, and the African World (1976), a collection of essays in which he examines the role of the artist in the light of Yorubamythology and symbolism.Art, Dialogue, and Outrage (1988) is a work on similar themes of art,culture, and society. He continued to address Africa’s ills and Western responsibility inThe Open Sore of a Continent (1996) andThe Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness (1999).

An autobiography,Aké: The Years of Childhood, was published in 1981 and followed by the companion piecesÌsarà: A Voyage Around Essay (1989) andIbadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir, 1946–1965 (1994). In 2006 he published another memoir,You Must Set Forth at Dawn.

Political activism and other career highlights

Soyinka has long been a proponent of Nigeriandemocracy. His decades of political activism include periods of imprisonment andexile, and he founded, headed, or participated in several political groups, including the National Democratic Organization, the National Liberation Council of Nigeria, and Pro-National Conference Organizations (PRONACO). In 2010 Soyinka founded the Democratic Front for a People’s Federation and served as chairman of the party.

From 1960 to 1964 Soyinka was coeditor ofBlack Orpheus, an important literary journal. From 1960 onward he taughtliterature anddrama and headed theater groups at various Nigerian universities, including those of Ibadan,Ife, andLagos. After winning the Nobel Prize, he was sought after as a lecturer, and many of his lectures were published—notably the Reith Lectures of 2004, asClimate of Fear (2004).