*If you subscribe to Newsweek Magazine, then like me you would have been pleasantly surprised to see a two page article in this week's copy - pages 26 and 27 by Prof. Wole Soyinka. The subject is sad. Heavy even. Titled the "Butchers of Nigeria", it talks about the corrupt Nigerian government that has allowed, maybe even fostered the growth of Boko Haram, a sect terrorizing the country currently. Please feel free to visit newsweek.com to read the article in its entirety. Well done for bringing the attention of the international community to what is going on in Nigeria.
This article is not about terrorism or corruption in Nigeria. Those are discussions for another day and another place.
This is just to highlight "one of us", a celebrated Yoruba literary giant, having an article in this week's Newsweek magazine, a small feat when you realize the man has also won a Nobel prize. A literary giant. Or at least that's what's he seemed to be to the child that I was in the '70s and eighties.
He was born on the 13th of July 1934. A writer, poet and playwright, some consider him Africa's most distinguished playwright, and maybe Nigerian's foremost dramatist,
as evidenced by him winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986 for his groundbreaking works that fuse literature and politics, Western and African traditions - the first African so honored.
Prof. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family, specifically, an Egba family in Abeokuta in 1934. Soyinka’s passion for the written word stems from this childhood in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria, where he was inspired by his “long family of word-spinners” from whom he also “imbibed” his sense of justice. He received a primary school education in Abeokuta and attended secondary school at Government College, Ibadan. He then studied at the University College, Ibadan (1952-1954) and the University of Leeds (1954-1957) from which he received an honours degree in English Literature. He worked as a play reader at the Royal Court Theatre in London before returning to Nigeria to study African drama. He taught in the Universities of Lagos, Ibadan, and Ife (becoming Professor of Comparative Literature there in 1975).
Prof Soyinka has played an active role in Nigeria's political history. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War he was arrested by the then Federal Government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for his attempts at brokering a peace between the warring parties. While in prison he wrote poetry which was published in a collection titled "Poems from Prison". He was released 22 months later after international attention was drawn to his imprisonment. His experiences in prison are recounted in his book "The Man Died: Prison Notes" He has been an outspoken critic of many Nigerian administrations, and of political tyrannies worldwide, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. A great deal of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". His play, King Baabu (2001) satirises African dictatorships. “If the spirit of African democracy has a voice and a face, they belong to Wole Soyinka,” said the New York Times.
This activism has often exposed him to great personal risk, most notable during the government of the Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha (1993-1998). During Abacha's dictatorship, he left the country on voluntary exile and has since been living abroad (mainly in the United States, where he was a professor at Emory University in Atlanta). When civilian rule returned in 1999, Prof. Soyinka accepted an emeritus post at Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) on the condition that the university bar all former military officers from the position of chancellor. Soyinka is currently the Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing at the English department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the President's Professor in residence at Loyola Marymount Institute at the University of Los Angeles, California, US.
In the field of literature, Prof Wole Soyinka is a household name. His books are used in classrooms everyday worldwide. He has left a footprint by encouraging youths that want to go into literature that they have a future. He has played a great role in the development of literature in Nigeria. He is also a mentor for the Rolex "Mentor and Protege Arts initiative" hence the photo shot above.
Soyinka’s latest work, You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006), depicts his adult life and opposition to Nigeria’s corrupt regimes. The memoir follows on from his autobiography, Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), and a long string of masterpieces written over a half-century.
'As remote as the moon once appeared to mankind, Peace remains the ultimate yearning, even in the furnace of conflict. Every initiative by individuals, institutions, even governments in pursuit of this prize is a leap of faith. It transcends even the pioneer astronauts' "one small step for man", its optimism the starting block towards the crowning "giant leap for humanity.'
Prof Soyinka says to the aspiring writers amongst us that the greatest lesson he can share is to "just sit down and write", it will all come together in the end...
And so I write...
*This article was put together by me from multiple sources including the current Newsweek magazine and the internet. Please let me know of errors/omissions and I'll be glad to rectify it.
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