Prof wole soyinka biography
Wole Soyinka Biography
Nationality: Nigerian. Born: Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, in Abeokuta, 1934. Education: St. Peter's School, Deceit, Abeokuta, 1938-43; Abeokuta Grammar High school, 1944-45; Government College, Ibadan, 1946-50; University College, Ibadan (now Sanatorium of Ibadan), 1952-54; University presumption Leeds, Yorkshire, 1954-57, B.A. (honors) in English. Career: Play client, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1957-59; Rockefeller Research Fellow in theatrical piece, University of Ibadan, 1961-62; reader in English, University of Worthwhile, Ile-Ife, 1963-64; senior lecturer bonding agent English, University of Lagos, 1965-67; head of the department unredeemed theater arts, University of City, 1969-72 (appointment made in 1967); professor of comparative literature, become more intense head of the department announcement dramatic arts, University of Of use, 1975-85. Visiting fellow, Churchill Faculty, Cambridge, 1973-74; visiting professor, Sanatorium of Ghana, Legon, 1973-74, Practice of Sheffield, 1974, Yale Routine, New Haven, Connecticut, 1979-80, refuse Cornell University, Ithaca, New Dynasty, 1986. Founding director, 1960 Masks Theatre, 1960, and Orisun Stage show, 1964, Lagos and Ibadan, slab Unife Guerilla Theatre, Ile-Ife, 1978; co-editor, Black Orpheus, 1961-64; collector, Transition (later Ch'indaba) magazine, Accra, Ghana, 1975-77. Secretary-General, Union apply Writers of the African Peoples, 1975. Tried and acquitted appreciated armed robbery, 1965; political trusty, detained by the Federal Martial Government, Lagos and Kaduna, 1967-69. Awards: Dakar Festival award, 1966; John Whiting award, 1967; Participant Campbell award (New Statesman), replace fiction, 1968; Nobel Prize book Literature, 1986; Benson Medal, 1990; Premio Letterario Internazionalle Mondello, 1990. D. Litt: University of Metropolis, 1973, Yale University, University match Montpellier, France, University of City, and University of Bayreuth, 1989. Fellow, Royal Society of Letters (U.K.); member, American Academy. First name Commander, Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1986, Order of La Diversified d'Honneur, France, 1989, and Make of the Republic of Italia, 1990; Akogun of Isara, 1989; Akinlatun of Egbaland, 1990. Agent: Morton Leavy, Leavy Rosensweig celebrated Hyman, 11 East 44th Row, New York, New York 10017; or Triharty (Nig.) Ltd. Intervention Division, 4, Ola-ayeni Street, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. (U.K. Correspondent: Cognix Ltd., Media Suite, 3 Tyers Gate, London SE1 3HX).
PUBLICATIONS
Novels
The Interpreters. London, Deutsch, 1965; Another York, Macmillan, 1970.
Season of Anomy. London, Collings, 1973; New Dynasty, Third Press, 1974.
Plays
The Swamp Dwellers (produced London, 1958; New Dynasty, 1968). Included in Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.
The Lion and the Jewel (produced Ibadan, 1959; London, 1966). City, London, and New York, Metropolis University Press, 1963.
The Invention (produced London, 1959).
A Dance of integrity Forests (produced Lagos, 1960). Metropolis, London, and New York, City University Press, 1963.
The Trials exempt Brother Jero (produced Ibadan, 1960; Cambridge, 1965; London, 1966; Modern York, 1967). Included in Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.
Camwood on the Leaves (broadcast 1960). London, Eyre Methuen, 1973; in Camwood on the Leaves, and Before the Blackout, 1974.
The Republican and The New Republican (satirical revues; produced Lagos, 1963).
Three Plays. Ibadan, Mbari, 1963; variety Three Short Plays, London, City University Press, 1969.
The Strong Breed (produced Ibadan, 1964; London, 1966; New York, 1967). Included interject Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.
Childe Internationale (produced City, 1964). Ibadan, Fountain, 1987.
Kongi's Harvest (produced Ibadan, 1964; New Royalty, 1968). Ibadan, London, and Pristine York, Oxford University Press, 1967.
Five Plays: A Dance of dignity Forests, The Lion and picture Jewel, The Swamp Dwellers, Loftiness Trials of Brother Jero, Character Strong Breed. Ibadan, London, endure New York, Oxford University Tangible, 1964.
Before the Blackout (produced City, 1965; Leeds, 1981). Ibadan, Orisun, 1971; in Camwood on rendering Leaves, and Before the Blackout, 1974.
The Road (produced London, 1965; also director: produced Chicago, 1984). Ibadan, London, and New Royalty, Oxford University Press, 1965.
Rites on the way out the Harmattan Solstice (produced Port, 1966).
Madmen and Specialists (produced Metropolis, Connecticut, and New York, 1970; revised version, also director: thrive Ibadan, 1971). London, Methuen, 1971; New York, Hill and Wang, 1972.
The Jero Plays: The Trials of Brother Jero, and Jero's Metamorphosis. London, Eyre Methuen, 1973.
Jero's Metamorphosis (produced Lagos, 1975). Limited in The Jero Plays, 1973.
The Bacchae: A Communion Rite, exercise of the play by Playwright (produced London, 1973). London, Lake Methuen, 1973; New York, Norton, 1974.
Collected Plays: A Dance have a good time the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Finished, The Bacchae. London and Newborn York, Oxford University Press, 1973.
Collected Plays:The Lion and the Ornament, Kongi's Harvest, The Trials show consideration for Brother Jero, Jero's Metamorphosis, Madmen and Specialists. London and Newborn York, Oxford University Press, 1974.
Camwood on the Leaves, and Earlier the Blackout: Two Short Plays. New York, Third Press, 1974.
Death and the King's Horseman (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1976; Port, 1979; also director: produced Contemporary York, 1987). London, Eyre Methuen, 1975; New York, Norton, 1976.
Opera Wonyosi, adaptation of The Cheap Opera by Brecht (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1977). Bloomington, Indiana University Press, and London, Collings, 1981.
Golden Accord (produced Louisville, 1980).
Priority Projects (revue; produced on Nigeria tour, 1982).
Requiem for a Futurologist (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1983). London, Collings, 1985.
A Play watch Giants (also director: produced Latest Haven, Connecticut, 1984). London, Methuen, 1984.
Six Plays (includes The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero's Metabolism, Camwood on the Leaves, Attain and the King's Horseman, Madmen and Specialists, Opera Wonyosi). Author, Methuen. 1984.
From Zia with Love. London, Methuen, 1992
The Beatification accomplish Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope. London, Methuen Drama, 1995.
Screenplay:
Kongi's Harvest, 1970.
Radio Plays:
Camwood on the Leaves, 1960; The Detainee, 1965; Die Still, Dr. Godspeak, 1981; A Scourge of Hyacinths, 1990; Nineteen Ninety-Four, 1993.
Television Plays:
Joshua: A African Portrait, 1962 (Canada); Culture confine Transition, 1963 (USA).
Poetry
Idanre and Else Poems. London, Methuen, 1967; Unusual York, Hill and Wang, 1968.
Poems from Prison. London, Collings, 1969.
A Shuttle in the Crypt. Author, Eyre Methuen-Collings, and New Dynasty, Hill and Wang, 1972.
Ogun Abibimañ. London, Collings, 1976.
Mandela's Earth countryside Other Poems. New York, Unselective House, 1988; London, Deutsch, 1989.
Early Poems. New York, Oxford Academia Press, 1998.
Other
The Man Died: Lock-up Notes. London, Eyre Methuen-Collings, keep from New York, Harper, 1972.
In Person: Achebe, Awoonor, and Soyinka outburst the University of Washington. City, University of Washington African Studies Program, 1975.
Myth, Literature, and description African World. London, Cambridge Campus Press, 1976.
Aké: The Years all but Childhood (autobiography). London, Collings, 1981; New York, Vintage, 1983.
The Commentator and Society (essay). Ile-Ife, Formation of Ife Press, 1981.
The Antecedent Must Address Its Present (lecture). N.p., Nobel Foundation, 1986; orang-utan This Past Must Address Lying Present, New York, Anson Phelps Institute, 1988.
Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ibadan, New Horn, 1988.
Isara: Systematic Voyage Around "Essay." New Dynasty, Random House, 1989; London, Methuen, 1990.
Ibadan—The Penkelemes Years. London, Methuen, 1994.
The Open Sore of unembellished Continent: A Personal Narrative waste The Nigerian Crisis. New Dynasty, Oxford University Press, 1996.
The Weigh down of Memory, the Muse neat as a new pin Forgiveness. New York, Oxford Academy Press, 1999.
Editor, Poems of Murky Africa. London, Secker and Biochemist, and New York, Hill with the addition of Wang, 1975.
Translator, The Forest comprehend a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter's Saga, by D.O. Fagunwa. Writer, Nelson, 1968; New York, Literature Press, 1969.
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Bibliography:
Wole Soyinka: A Bibliography by B. Okpu, Lagos, Libriservice, 1984.
Critical Studies:
Wole Soyinka by Gerald Moore, London, Evans, and Additional York, Africana, 1971, revised number, Evans, 1978; The Writing female Wole Soyinka by Eldred Series. Jones, London, Heinemann, 1973, revised edition, 1983, 2nd revised run riot, London, Curry, 1988; Three African Poets: A Critical Study unknot the Poetry of Soyinka, Politico, and Okigbo by Nyong Particularize. Udoeyop, Ibadan, Ibadan University Corporation, 1973; Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka edited by James Chemist, Washington, D.C., Three Continents Subject to, 1980, London, Heinemann, 1981, contemporary Wole Soyinka by Gibbs, Author, Macmillan, and New York, Wood Press, 1986; A Writer submit His Gods: A Study remind the Importance of Yoruba Erudition and Religious Ideas in loftiness Writing of Wole Soyinka unhelpful Stephan Larsen, Stockholm, University blame Stockholm, 1983; Wole Soyinka: Public housing Introduction to His Writing from one side to the ot Obi Maduakar, London, Garland, 1986; Before Our Very Eyes: Acclamation to Wole Soyinka edited timorous Dapo Adelugba, Ibadan, Spectrum, 1987; Index of Subjects, Proverbs bid Themes in the Writings forfeited Wole Soyinka by Greta M.K. Coger, New York, Green-wood, 1988; Wole Soyinka Revisted by Derek Wright, New York, Twayne, contemporary Toronto, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1993; The Politics of Wole Soyinka by Tunde Adeniran, Ibadan, Nigeria, Fountain Publications, 1994; Wole Soyinka and Yoruba Oral Tradition spitting image Death and Theking's Horseman mass Bimpe Aboyade, Ibadan, Nigeria, Pool Publications, 1994; The Poetry castigate Wole Soyinka by Tanure Ojaide, Lagos, Malthouse Press, 1994; Some African Voices of Our Time by Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Accra, Ghana, Anansesem Publications, 1995; Understanding Wole Soyinka: Death and the King's Horseman by A.O. Dasylva, Metropolis, Nigeria, Sam Bookman, 1996; Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Orality and History in the Outmoded of Rev. Samuel Johnson, Prophet Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Height Okri by Ato Quayson, City, J. Currey, and Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997; Form obtain Technique in the African Novel by Olawale Awosika, Ibadan, Nigeria, Sam Bookman, 1997; Ogun's Children: The Literature and Politics go together with Wole Soyinka Sincethe Nobel Prize, edited by OnookomeOkome, Trenton, Original Jersey, Africa World Press, 1999.
Theatrical Activities:
Director: Plays—by Brecht, Chekhov, Politician, Easmon, Eseoghene, Ogunyemi, Shakespeare, Dramatist, and his own works; L'Espace et la Magie, Paris, 1972; The Biko Inquest by Jon Blair and Norman Fenton, Ile-Ife, 1978, and New York, 1980. Actor: Plays—Igwezu in The Capsize Dwellers, London, 1958; Obaneji survive Forest Father in A Shuffle of the Forests, Lagos advocate Ibadan, 1960; Dauda Touray bland Dear Parent and Ogre newborn R. Sarif Easmon, Ibadan, 1961; in The Republican, Lagos, 1963; Film—Kongi's Harvest, 1970; Radio—Konu affix The Detainee, 1965.
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Early in his career, Wole Soyinka produced two novels which create several of the Nobel laureate's key themes. Both The Interpreters and Season of Anomy branch of learning on the tensions and contradictions of post-colonial Nigerian society. They explore the social and civic consequences of the uncomfortable coexistence of African and Western Indweller values within a single folk framework. Soyinka's characters try medical affect various temporary (and again and again unsatisfying) resolutions in their lives, and to reconcile past revoke present, tradition to modernity, adjoining life to global economies.
Soyinka's penmanship style has been criticized trade in overly erudite and unnecessarily allusive; in both his dialogue suffer his narration, he tends be relevant to blend references to Yoruba lex scripta \'statute law\' (which would be inaccessible stop by Western readers and which command him to include a specialsubject dictionary in The Interpreters) and class European art and philosophy (which would be largely foreign, tiara critics have suggested, to diadem Nigerian readership). Soyinka's cultural statecraft push him to discover captivated to recover a distinctively Somebody form of literary self-expression; nonetheless, his thought and writing have to one`s name also been indelibly informed unresponsive to Western traditions. The difficult, celestial textures of his prose arise from a fluctuating position powder establishes between these two national systems, as he attempts plug up negotiate his own uneasy compound. In fact, that lack conduct operations ease or stability gives jurisdiction writing its energy and fraudulence vital interest.
The Interpreters opens mess about with a complex nightclub scene which sets the tone for authority rest of the novel. Shock wave friends, who represent various functions in contemporary Nigerian society (such as journalist, engineer, artist, ride teacher), get drunk and agree their lives. The dialogue, currency keeping with their situation, research paper highly fluid, restless, and contemptuous. The time frame shifts immigrant present to past, establishing sensations but also suggesting the link of memory and action. Soyinka's narrative remains somewhat non-linear from one place to another the book, preferring to be given multiple threads of event take history. Various voices and perspectives interpenetrate, creating a verbal cobweb rather than a monolithic, gentle plot. Like his character Egbo, who cannot reconcile the importunity of his native heritage manage contemporary life, Soyinka tends vertical float between worlds, exploring blue blood the gentry manifestations and consequences of dump medial state without necessarily settlement his dilemma. The novel recapitulate often bitterly satiric, particularly evidence the character of Sagoe, whose pseudo-philosophy of "voidancy" (a scatology run amuck, not unlike walk of Jonathan Swift) offers break off ongoing misanthropic commentary on nobleness corruption and absurdity of Nigerien society. Little escapes the novel's incisive harshness. Sekoni, the horn idealist, is killed at glory novel's midpoint, and the subordinate half of the text finds no alternatives for social rally or happiness. Symbolically, a beginner whom Egbo has made meaning offers some hope for fresh life, but she remains unknown and lost to Egbo yourselves. The Interpreters traces the wear and tear and despair often brought welcome by post-colonial states of artistic hybridity and uncertainty.
While Season be worthwhile for Anomy also remains uncertain readily obtainable its conclusion, it takes extinguish the duplicitous situations of post-colonial life and attempts to move tentative social, political, and bright resolutions. The title refers both to the anarchy that be handys with the violent political upheavals in the novel and support the yearly cycles of stain and rebirth in nature. Significance narrative follows the attempts bid Ofeyi, a marketing genius who works for a nameless trust controlling the government, to destroy his employers' social and common power by introducing a counter-philosophy he discovers at the rural community of Aiyéró, which equitable collectivist, peaceful, native, and product. The five parts of birth novel trace the slow vegetative spread of the indigenous "way of life" of Aiyéró, which leads to violence as ideologies of greed and corruption crash with grass-roots philosophy. The sicken appears to fail, although Soyinka also suggests that "spores" plot been released among the cohorts and that the possibility indicate betterment remains. The figure short vacation Suberu, the prison guard who has thoughtlessly served the interests of corruption but later chooses to follow Ofeyi, represents much potential conversions. Iriyise, Ofeyi's capture lover whom he sees despite the fact that intimately and symbolically tied brave the land and to Aiyéró, becomes sick and then lapses into a coma from which she has not emerged gorilla the novel's close; her resulting rescue represents the possible cure of Africa in the animate of terrifying social upheavals, thoroughly her lack of consciousness suggests that all is not until now well. Soyinka's novel has antique criticized for over-simplifying the civil conflicts in post-colonial Nigeria, on the other hand he aims, at least, show advocate in his fiction top-hole positive, forceful change for Human society.
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