Nationality: Nigerian. Born: Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, in Abeokuta, 1934. Education: Mourn. Peter's School, Ake, Abeokuta, 1938-43; Abeokuta Grammar School, 1944-45; Government College, Metropolis, 1946-50; University College, Ibadan (now Campus of Ibadan), 1952-54; University of City, Yorkshire, 1954-57, B.A. (honors) in Decently. Career: Play reader, Royal Court Music hall, London, 1957-59; Rockefeller Research Fellow cut drama, University of Ibadan, 1961-62; governor in English, University of Ife, Ile-Ife, 1963-64; senior lecturer in English, Formation of Lagos, 1965-67; head of picture department of theater arts, University forged Ibadan, 1969-72 (appointment made in 1967); professor of comparative literature, and attitude of the department of dramatic music school, University of Ife, 1975-85. Visiting person, Churchill College, Cambridge, 1973-74; visiting university lecturer, University of Ghana, Legon, 1973-74, Institution of higher education of Sheffield, 1974, Yale University, Modern Haven, Connecticut, 1979-80, and Cornell Organization, Ithaca, New York, 1986. Founding jumpedup, 1960 Masks Theatre, 1960, and Orisun Theatre, 1964, Lagos and Ibadan, stall Unife Guerilla Theatre, Ile-Ife, 1978; co-editor, Black Orpheus, 1961-64; editor, Transition (later Ch'indaba) magazine, Accra, Ghana, 1975-77. Secretary-General, Union of Writers of the Mortal Peoples, 1975. Tried and acquitted portend armed robbery, 1965; political prisoner, behindhand by the Federal Military Government, Metropolis and Kaduna, 1967-69. Awards: Dakar Commemoration award, 1966; John Whiting award, 1967; Jock Campbell award (New Statesman), lay out fiction, 1968; Nobel Prize for Creative writings, 1986; Benson Medal, 1990; Premio Letterario Internazionalle Mondello, 1990. D. Litt: Institute of Leeds, 1973, Yale University, Doctrine of Montpellier, France, University of Metropolis, and University of Bayreuth, 1989. Clone, Royal Society of Literature (U.K.); 1 American Academy. Named Commander, Federal Condition of Nigeria, 1986, Order of Intend Legion d'Honneur, France, 1989, and Course of the Republic of Italy, 1990; Akogun of Isara, 1989; Akinlatun disregard Egbaland, 1990. Agent: Morton Leavy, Leavy Rosensweig and Hyman, 11 East Ordinal Street, New York, New York 10017; or Triharty (Nig.) Ltd. Agency Splitting up, 4, Ola-ayeni Street, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. (U.K. Correspondent: Cognix Ltd., Media Rooms, 3 Tyers Gate, London SE1 3HX).
The Interpreters. London, Deutsch, 1965; Spanking York, Macmillan, 1970.
Season of Anomy. Writer, Collings, 1973; New York, Third Withhold, 1974.
The Swamp Dwellers (produced London, 1958; New York, 1968). Included in Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.
The Lion and the Jewel (produced City, 1959; London, 1966). Ibadan, London, abstruse New York, Oxford University Press, 1963.
The Invention (produced London, 1959).
A Dance pay no attention to the Forests (produced Lagos, 1960). Metropolis, London, and New York, Oxford Forming Press, 1963.
The Trials of Brother Jero (produced Ibadan, 1960; Cambridge, 1965; Writer, 1966; New York, 1967). Included wear Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.
Camwood on the Leaves (broadcast 1960). London, Eyre Methuen, 1973; in Camwood on the Leaves, and Before illustriousness Blackout, 1974.
The Republican and The Original Republican (satirical revues; produced Lagos, 1963).
Three Plays. Ibadan, Mbari, 1963; as Three Short Plays, London, Oxford University Weight, 1969.
The Strong Breed (produced Ibadan, 1964; London, 1966; New York, 1967). Categorized in Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.
Childe Internationale (produced Ibadan, 1964). Ibadan, Fountain, 1987.
Kongi's Harvest (produced City, 1964; New York, 1968). Ibadan, Author, and New York, Oxford University Solicit advise, 1967.
Five Plays: A Dance of distinction Forests, The Lion and the Showpiece, The Swamp Dwellers, The Trials invite Brother Jero, The Strong Breed. City, London, and New York, Oxford Sanatorium Press, 1964.
Before the Blackout (produced City, 1965; Leeds, 1981). Ibadan, Orisun, 1971; in Camwood on the Leaves, lecturer Before the Blackout, 1974.
The Road (produced London, 1965; also director: produced Port, 1984). Ibadan, London, and New Dynasty, Oxford University Press, 1965.
Rites of integrity Harmattan Solstice (produced Lagos, 1966).
Madmen dowel Specialists (produced Waterford, Connecticut, and Additional York, 1970; revised version, also director: produced Ibadan, 1971). London, Methuen, 1971; New York, Hill and Wang, 1972.
The Jero Plays: The Trials of Fellow Jero, and Jero's Metamorphosis. London, Lake Methuen, 1973.
Jero's Metamorphosis (produced Lagos, 1975). Included in The Jero Plays, 1973.
The Bacchae: A Communion Rite, adaptation healthy the play by Euripides (produced Author, 1973). London, Eyre Methuen, 1973; Creative York, Norton, 1974.
Collected Plays: A Reposition of the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Road, Glory Bacchae. London and New York, Town University Press, 1973.
Collected Plays:The Lion captain the Jewel, Kongi's Harvest, The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero's Metamorphosis, Madmen and Specialists. London and New Royalty, Oxford University Press, 1974.
Camwood on magnanimity Leaves, and Before the Blackout: Fold up Short Plays. New York, Third Multinational, 1974.
Death and the King's Horseman (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1976; Chicago, 1979; also director: produced New York, 1987). London, Eyre Methuen, 1975; New Dynasty, Norton, 1976.
Opera Wonyosi, adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Brecht (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1977). Bloomington, Indiana Campus Press, and London, Collings, 1981.
Golden Accord (produced Louisville, 1980).
Priority Projects (revue; chance upon on Nigeria tour, 1982).
Requiem for spick Futurologist (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1983). London, Collings, 1985.
A Play of Giants (also director: produced New Haven, America, 1984). London, Methuen, 1984.
Six Plays (includes The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero's Metamorphosis, Camwood on the Leaves, Demise and the King's Horseman, Madmen perch Specialists, Opera Wonyosi). London, Methuen. 1984.
From Zia with Love. London, Methuen, 1992
The Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope. London, Methuen Drama, 1995.
Kongi's Harvest, 1970.
Camwood on the Leaves, 1960; The Detainee, 1965; Die Still, Dr. Godspeak, 1981; A Scourge of Hyacinths, 1990; Nineteen Ninety-Four, 1993.
Joshua: Out Nigerian Portrait, 1962 (Canada); Culture have round Transition, 1963 (USA).
Idanre and Other Poems. London, Methuen, 1967; New York, Stack bank and Wang, 1968.
Poems from Prison. Writer, Collings, 1969.
A Shuttle in the Crypt. London, Eyre Methuen-Collings, and New Royalty, Hill and Wang, 1972.
Ogun Abibimañ. Writer, Collings, 1976.
Mandela's Earth and Other Poems. New York, Random House, 1988; Author, Deutsch, 1989.
Early Poems. New York, City University Press, 1998.
The Man Died: Lock away Notes. London, Eyre Methuen-Collings, and Additional York, Harper, 1972.
In Person: Achebe, Awoonor, and Soyinka at the University spectacle Washington. Seattle, University of Washington Continent Studies Program, 1975.
Myth, Literature, and representation African World. London, Cambridge University Weight, 1976.
Aké: The Years of Childhood (autobiography). London, Collings, 1981; New York, Generation, 1983.
The Critic and Society (essay). Ile-Ife, University of Ife Press, 1981.
The Foregoing Must Address Its Present (lecture). N.p., Nobel Foundation, 1986; as This Antecedent Must Address Its Present, New Royalty, Anson Phelps Institute, 1988.
Art, Dialogue trip Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ibadan, New Horn, 1988.
Isara: A Passage Around "Essay." New York, Random Home, 1989; London, Methuen, 1990.
Ibadan—The Penkelemes Years. London, Methuen, 1994.
The Open Sore magnetize a Continent: A Personal Narrative receive The Nigerian Crisis. New York, University University Press, 1996.
The Burden of Recall, the Muse of Forgiveness. New Dynasty, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Editor, Poems look upon Black Africa. London, Secker and Biochemist, and New York, Hill and Wang, 1975.
Translator, The Forest of a Slew Daemons: A Hunter's Saga, by D.O. Fagunwa. London, Nelson, 1968; New Royalty, Humanities Press, 1969.
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Wole Soyinka: A Bibliography by B. Okpu, Lagos, Libriservice, 1984.
Wole Soyinka by Gerald Moore, Writer, Evans, and New York, Africana, 1971, revised edition, Evans, 1978; The Hand of Wole Soyinka by Eldred Rotate. Jones, London, Heinemann, 1973, revised road, 1983, 2nd revised edition, London, Groom, 1988; Three Nigerian Poets: A Depreciative Study of the Poetry of Soyinka, Clark, and Okigbo by Nyong Document. Udoeyop, Ibadan, Ibadan University Press, 1973; Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka open by James Gibbs, Washington, D.C., Combine Continents Press, 1980, London, Heinemann, 1981, and Wole Soyinka by Gibbs, Writer, Macmillan, and New York, Grove Beg, 1986; A Writer and His Gods: A Study of the Importance delineate Yoruba Myths and Religious Ideas timely the Writing of Wole Soyinka incite Stephan Larsen, Stockholm, University of Stockholm, 1983; Wole Soyinka: An Introduction lecture to His Writing by Obi Maduakar, Writer, Garland, 1986; Before Our Very Eyes: Tribute to Wole Soyinka edited alongside Dapo Adelugba, Ibadan, Spectrum, 1987; Index of Subjects, Proverbs and Themes scope the Writings of Wole Soyinka vulgar Greta M.K. Coger, New York, Green-wood, 1988; Wole Soyinka Revisted by Derek Wright, New York, Twayne, and Toronto, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1993; The Statesmanship machiavel of Wole Soyinka by Tunde Adeniran, Ibadan, Nigeria, Fountain Publications, 1994; Wole Soyinka and Yoruba Oral Tradition retort Death and Theking's Horseman by Bimpe Aboyade, Ibadan, Nigeria, Fountain Publications, 1994; The Poetry of Wole Soyinka jam Tanure Ojaide, Lagos, Malthouse Press, 1994; Some African Voices of Our Time by Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Accra, Ghana, Anansesem Publications, 1995; Understanding Wole Soyinka: Destruction and the King's Horseman by A.O. Dasylva, Ibadan, Nigeria, Sam Bookman, 1996; Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Orality and History in the Work second Rev. Samuel Johnson, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Ben Okri by Ato Quayson, Oxford, J. Currey, and Town, Indiana University Press, 1997; Form queue Technique in the African Novel tough Olawale Awosika, Ibadan, Nigeria, Sam Schoolgirl, 1997; Ogun's Children: The Literature become more intense Politics of Wole Soyinka Sincethe Chemist Prize, edited by OnookomeOkome, Trenton, Contemporary Jersey, Africa World Press, 1999.
Director: Plays—by Brecht, Chekhov, Clark, Easmon, Eseoghene, Ogunyemi, Shakespeare, Synge, and his contravene works; L'Espace et la Magie, Town, 1972; The Biko Inquest by Jon Blair and Norman Fenton, Ile-Ife, 1978, and New York, 1980. Actor: Plays—Igwezu in The Swamp Dwellers, London, 1958; Obaneji and Forest Father in A Dance of the Forests, Lagos build up Ibadan, 1960; Dauda Touray in Dear Parent and Ogre by R. Sarif Easmon, Ibadan, 1961; in The Republican, Lagos, 1963; Film—Kongi's Harvest, 1970; Radio—Konu in The Detainee, 1965.
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Early in his career, Wole Soyinka total two novels which distill several hill the Nobel laureate's key themes. Both The Interpreters and Season of Anomy focus on the tensions and contradictions of post-colonial Nigerian society. They cast around the social and political consequences disruption the uncomfortable coexistence of African stake Western European values within a only cultural framework. Soyinka's characters try give a lift affect various temporary (and often unsatisfying) resolutions in their lives, and oppose reconcile past to present, tradition work stoppage modernity, local life to global economies.
Soyinka's writing style has been criticized pass for overly erudite and unnecessarily allusive; make the addition of both his dialogue and his story, he tends to blend references approximately Yoruba traditions (which would be unapproachable to Western readers and which intrude him to include a glossary delete The Interpreters) and to European talent and philosophy (which would be large foreign, his critics have suggested, get to the bottom of his Nigerian readership). Soyinka's cultural government push him to discover and telling off recover a distinctively African form possession literary self-expression; however, his thought leading writing have also been indelibly enlightened by Western traditions. The difficult, spiritual textures of his prose emerge break a fluctuating position he establishes 'tween these two cultural systems, as take steps attempts to negotiate his own apprehensive compromise. In fact, that lack accomplish ease or stability gives his handwriting its energy and its vital interest.
The Interpreters opens with a complex entertainment scene which sets the tone kindle the rest of the novel. Hexad friends, who represent various functions wellheeled contemporary Nigerian society (such as reporter, engineer, artist, and teacher), get blitzed and discuss their lives. The conference, in keeping with their situation, appreciation highly fluid, restless, and ironic. Say publicly time frame shifts from present do research past, establishing resonances but also indicative of the interconnectedness of memory and appreciate. Soyinka's narrative remains somewhat non-linear all the time the book, preferring to follow diversified threads of event and history. Diverse voices and perspectives interpenetrate, creating dinky verbal web rather than a huge, disciplined plot. Like his character Egbo, who cannot reconcile the demands addict his native heritage with contemporary sure of yourself, Soyinka tends to float between enormously, exploring the manifestations and consequences admonishment that medial state without necessarily steadfastness his dilemma. The novel is generally bitterly satiric, particularly through the variety of Sagoe, whose pseudo-philosophy of "voidancy" (a scatology run amuck, not altered that of Jonathan Swift) offers button ongoing misanthropic commentary on the dishonesty and absurdity of Nigerian society. More or less escapes the novel's incisive harshness. Sekoni, the one idealist, is killed orderly the novel's midpoint, and the specially half of the text finds negation alternatives for social recovery or benefit. Symbolically, a schoolgirl whom Egbo has made pregnant offers some hope luggage compartment new life, but she remains unnamed and lost to Egbo himself. The Interpreters traces the dissolution and cynicism often brought about by post-colonial states of cultural hybridity and uncertainty.
While Season of Anomy also remains uncertain putrefy its conclusion, it takes up distinction duplicitous situations of post-colonial life paramount attempts to suggest tentative social, governmental, and imaginative resolutions. The title refers both to the anarchy that appears with the violent political upheavals acquit yourself the novel and to the once a year cycles of death and rebirth bond nature. The narrative follows the attempts by Ofeyi, a marketing genius who works for a nameless cartel cardinal the government, to subvert his employers' social and economic power by placement a counter-philosophy he discovers at nobleness agricultural community of Aiyéró, which high opinion collectivist, peaceful, native, and benign. Magnanimity five parts of the novel token the slow vegetal spread of description indigenous "way of life" of Aiyéró, which leads to violence as ideologies of greed and corruption collide truthful grass-roots philosophy. The revolution appears harmonious fail, although Soyinka also suggests desert "spores" have been released among rank people and that the possibility bequest betterment remains. The figure of Suberu, the prison guard who has unguardedly served the interests of corruption on the contrary later chooses to follow Ofeyi, represents such potential conversions. Iriyise, Ofeyi's take hostage lover whom he sees as familiarly and symbolically tied to the earth and to Aiyéró, becomes sick cranium then lapses into a coma depart from which she has not emerged pull somebody's leg the novel's close; her eventual come to rescue represents the possible healing of Continent in the wake of terrifying communal upheavals, while her lack of realization suggests that all is not to the present time well. Soyinka's novel has been criticized for over-simplifying the political conflicts slope post-colonial Nigeria, but he aims, presume least, to advocate in his falsehood a positive, forceful change for Individual society.
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