The great playwright, novelist, poet, activist and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka is 82 years of age today. Soyinka has been an icon for many years, contributing immensely to the cultural scene of Nigeria.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study in Nigeria and the UK, he 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 broadcasted 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.
He has written many plays, poems and prose including ; “The Lion and the Jewel”, “The Jero Plays”, “Ake: The Years of Childhood”, “Kongi’s Harvest” and translated D.O Fanfunwa’s “The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter’s Saga” into English.
He has also taught in Cornell University and then at Emory University in Atlanta, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts.
We wish the great man a happy birthday.