BIRTHDAY: Nigerians, activists eulogize Soyinka at 86
By Bartholomew Madukwe
Like said, “For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity" indeed justice was seen on Monday as Nigerians, human rights activists and social critics eulogized Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, as he turned 86 years old.
President- Women Arise and Centre for Change, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, described Soyinka as a man of many parts, adding that he is many things to many people.
"When we talk of a Third Force to liberate suffering Nigerians from the shackles of oppression, we speak of the same man. When we talk of the man who dies for keeping quiet in the face of tyranny, we talk of him. We can go on and on! Happy birthday to our one and only Nobel Laureate in Nigeria. Long life and good health to our one and only Prof. Wole Soyinka," she asserted.
Olayinka Kayode, on his part, noted that Prof. Soyinka is untiring, ever representing, spontaneous initiator, organizer, author of progressive thought and one whose value is unquantifiable.
According to Franca Okei-Mebu, the Nobel Laureate has etched his name in the golden book of history as he hits 86 years.
Literature students in Nigeria and other parts of the world, apart from listening to him speak, enjoy reading books authored by Prof. Soyinka, as human rights activists maintain that he remains a man that will always state his opinion on things as he sees it.
Prof. Soyinka has many works to his credit. His plays are: Keffi's Birthday Treat (1954), The Invention (1957), The Swamp Dwellers (1958), A Quality of Violence (1959), The Lion and the Jewel (1959), The Trials of Brother Jero, A Dance of the Forests (1960), My Father's Burden (1960), The Strong Breed (1964), Before the Blackout (1964), Kongi's Harvest (1964), The Road (1965), Madmen and Specialists (1970).
Other plays by the Nobel Laureate are: The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), Camwood on the Leaves (1973), Jero's Metamorphosis (1973), Death and the King's Horseman (1975), Opera Wonyosi (1977), Requiem for a Futurologist (1983), A Play of Giants (1984), Childe Internationale (1987), From Zia with Love (1992), The Detainee (radio play), A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play), The Beatification of Area Boy (1996), Document of Identity (radio play, 1999), King Baabu (2001), Etiki Revu Wetin, Alapata Apata (2011) and 'Thus Spake Orunmila' (short piece; in Sixty-Six Books (2011).
His novels are: The Interpreters (1964), and Season of Anomy (1972), Short stories-
A Tale of Two (1958), Egbe's Sworn Enemy (1960), Madame Etienne's Establishment (1960), Memoirs-The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972), Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a memoir 19466–5 (1989), Isara: A Voyage around Essay (1990) and You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006).
Prof. Soyinka's poetry collections are: Telephone Conversation (1963), Idanre and other poems (1967), A Big Airplane Crashed Into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison) (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971), Ogun Abibiman (1976), Mandela's Earth and other poems (1988), Early Poems (1997), including Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002).
Essays written by the 86-year-old Nobel Laureate are: Towards a True Theater (1962), Culture in Transition (1963), Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture (1988), from Drama and the African World View (1976), Myth, Literature, and the African World (1976), The Blackman and the Veil (1990), The Credo of Being and Nothingness (1991), The Burden of Memory – The Muse of Forgiveness (1999), A Climate of Fear (the BBC Reith Lectures 2004, audio and transcripts), New Imperialism (2009) and Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions (2019).
His movies are: Kongi's Harvest, Culture in Transition, Blues for a Prodigal, (Translations) The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter’s Saga (1968; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀) and In the Forest of Olodumare (2010; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Igbo Olodumare).
EDUCATION/POLITICS
Although he is popularly known as Prof. Wole Soyinka, his complete name is Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: Akínwándé Olúwo̩lé Babátúndé S̩óyíinká) He was born 13 July 1934.
The Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Prof. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan] and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England.
After studying in Nigeria and UK, the Nobel Laureate worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio.
He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.
Prof. Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.
Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route." Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia." With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ife.[8] With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus.
While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts.
Prof. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.
He has also taught at the universities of Oxford, Harvard and Yale. The Nobel Laureate was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008. In December 2017, he was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category.
LEGACY
The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was founded in 1994 and "is dedicated to honouring one of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring literary icons: Professor Wole Soyinka".] It is organised by the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which organisation Soyinka with six other students founded in 1952 at the then University College Ibadan.
In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built a writers' enclave in his honour.It is located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing.
In 2013, he visited the Benin Moat as the representative of UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project. He is currently the consultant for the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos State deeming him as the only person who could bring out the aims and objectives of the Festival to the people.
In 2014, the collection Crucible of the Ages: Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochwuku Promise, was published by Bookcraft in Nigeria and Ayebia Clarke Publishing in the UK, with tributes and contributions from Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Margaret Busby, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ali Mazrui, Sefi Atta, and others.
In 2018, Henry Louis Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerian filmmaker and writer, Onyeka Nwelue, visited him in Harvard and was making a documentary film on Wole Soyinka. As part of efforts to mark his 84th birthday, a collectiom of poems titled 84 Delicious Bottles of Wine was published for Wole Soyinka, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa. Among the notable contributors was Adamu Usman Garko, award winning teenage essayist, poet and writer.
HONOURS
1973: Honorary D.Litt., University of Leeds; 1973–74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge; 1983: Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; 1983: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States; 1986: Nobel Prize for Literature; 1986: Agip Prize for Literature; 1986: Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR).; 1990: Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature; 1993: Honorary doctorate, Harvard University; 2002: Honorary fellowship, SOAS; 2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University; 2005: Conferred with the chieftaincy title of the Akinlatun of Egbaland by the Oba Alake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.
Other honours are: 2009: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement; 2013: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement, United States; 2014: International Humanist Award; 2017: Joins the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Humanities; 2017 "Special Prize" of the Europe Theatre Prize; 2018, University of Ibadan renamed its arts theater to Wole Soyinka Theatre and 2018: Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).
Like said, “For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity" indeed justice was seen on Monday as Nigerians, human rights activists and social critics eulogized Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, as he turned 86 years old.
"When we talk of a Third Force to liberate suffering Nigerians from the shackles of oppression, we speak of the same man. When we talk of the man who dies for keeping quiet in the face of tyranny, we talk of him. We can go on and on! Happy birthday to our one and only Nobel Laureate in Nigeria. Long life and good health to our one and only Prof. Wole Soyinka," she asserted.
According to Franca Okei-Mebu, the Nobel Laureate has etched his name in the golden book of history as he hits 86 years.
Literature students in Nigeria and other parts of the world, apart from listening to him speak, enjoy reading books authored by Prof. Soyinka, as human rights activists maintain that he remains a man that will always state his opinion on things as he sees it.
Prof. Soyinka has many works to his credit. His plays are: Keffi's Birthday Treat (1954), The Invention (1957), The Swamp Dwellers (1958), A Quality of Violence (1959), The Lion and the Jewel (1959), The Trials of Brother Jero, A Dance of the Forests (1960), My Father's Burden (1960), The Strong Breed (1964), Before the Blackout (1964), Kongi's Harvest (1964), The Road (1965), Madmen and Specialists (1970).
His novels are: The Interpreters (1964), and Season of Anomy (1972), Short stories-
A Tale of Two (1958), Egbe's Sworn Enemy (1960), Madame Etienne's Establishment (1960), Memoirs-The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972), Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a memoir 19466–5 (1989), Isara: A Voyage around Essay (1990) and You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006).
Prof. Soyinka's poetry collections are: Telephone Conversation (1963), Idanre and other poems (1967), A Big Airplane Crashed Into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison) (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971), Ogun Abibiman (1976), Mandela's Earth and other poems (1988), Early Poems (1997), including Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002).
Essays written by the 86-year-old Nobel Laureate are: Towards a True Theater (1962), Culture in Transition (1963), Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture (1988), from Drama and the African World View (1976), Myth, Literature, and the African World (1976), The Blackman and the Veil (1990), The Credo of Being and Nothingness (1991), The Burden of Memory – The Muse of Forgiveness (1999), A Climate of Fear (the BBC Reith Lectures 2004, audio and transcripts), New Imperialism (2009) and Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions (2019).
His movies are: Kongi's Harvest, Culture in Transition, Blues for a Prodigal, (Translations) The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter’s Saga (1968; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmalẹ̀) and In the Forest of Olodumare (2010; a translation of D. O. Fagunwa's Igbo Olodumare).
EDUCATION/POLITICS
Although he is popularly known as Prof. Wole Soyinka, his complete name is Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: Akínwándé Olúwo̩lé Babátúndé S̩óyíinká) He was born 13 July 1934.
The Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Prof. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan] and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England.
After studying in Nigeria and UK, the Nobel Laureate worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio.
He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.
Prof. Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.
Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route." Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia." With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ife.[8] With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus.
While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts.
Prof. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US.
He has also taught at the universities of Oxford, Harvard and Yale. The Nobel Laureate was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008. In December 2017, he was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category.
LEGACY
The Wole Soyinka Annual Lecture Series was founded in 1994 and "is dedicated to honouring one of Nigeria and Africa's most outstanding and enduring literary icons: Professor Wole Soyinka".] It is organised by the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity), which organisation Soyinka with six other students founded in 1952 at the then University College Ibadan.
In 2011, the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre built a writers' enclave in his honour.It is located in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The enclave includes a Writer-in-Residence Programme that enables writers to stay for a period of two, three or six months, engaging in serious creative writing.
In 2013, he visited the Benin Moat as the representative of UNESCO in recognition of the Naija seven Wonders project. He is currently the consultant for the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, with the Lagos State deeming him as the only person who could bring out the aims and objectives of the Festival to the people.
In 2014, the collection Crucible of the Ages: Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochwuku Promise, was published by Bookcraft in Nigeria and Ayebia Clarke Publishing in the UK, with tributes and contributions from Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Margaret Busby, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ali Mazrui, Sefi Atta, and others.
In 2018, Henry Louis Gates, Jr tweeted that Nigerian filmmaker and writer, Onyeka Nwelue, visited him in Harvard and was making a documentary film on Wole Soyinka. As part of efforts to mark his 84th birthday, a collectiom of poems titled 84 Delicious Bottles of Wine was published for Wole Soyinka, edited by Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa. Among the notable contributors was Adamu Usman Garko, award winning teenage essayist, poet and writer.
HONOURS
1973: Honorary D.Litt., University of Leeds; 1973–74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge; 1983: Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; 1983: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States; 1986: Nobel Prize for Literature; 1986: Agip Prize for Literature; 1986: Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR).; 1990: Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature; 1993: Honorary doctorate, Harvard University; 2002: Honorary fellowship, SOAS; 2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University; 2005: Conferred with the chieftaincy title of the Akinlatun of Egbaland by the Oba Alake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.
Other honours are: 2009: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement; 2013: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement, United States; 2014: International Humanist Award; 2017: Joins the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Humanities; 2017 "Special Prize" of the Europe Theatre Prize; 2018, University of Ibadan renamed its arts theater to Wole Soyinka Theatre and 2018: Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).
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