SYNW
FELICITATES WITH WOLE SOYINKA ON 86TH BIRTHDAY
The Society of Young
Nigerian Writers (SYNW) has congratulated Prof. Akínwándé Olúwo̩lé Babátúndé
S̩óyíinká, a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist and essayist who was
awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature on the occasion of his 86th birthday
anniversary.
In a statement by the
National President of SYNW, Wole Adedoyin who is also the immediate past National
Publicity Secretary (South) of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), lauded
Prof. Wole Soyinka’s contributions to the promotion of African Literature and for
being consistent in convening national discourse on issues of contemporary
importance in the nation.
The statement further read: “Happy birthday to
the father of modern African Literature and Theatre. Not only do you seamlessly
adapt to address the emerging challenges from the persistent ones that we face
in our country today, but you are also always striving to make things better
with new approaches and such unfaltering determination. Members of the Society
of Young Nigerian Writers (SYNW) across the country just want to thank you for
all of your amazing efforts over the years!”
“You
are our hero, our mentor and certainly the most influential person in our
lives. We thank God for putting such a phenomenal person like you into our
lives. We shall forever remember and appreciate all the incredible things you
have done for African Literature and Nigeria as a country. God bless you. Happy
birthday to you sir.”
Wole
Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After
preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he
continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his
doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the
Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller
bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he
taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife,
where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he
founded the theatre group, “The 1960 Masks” and in 1964, the “Orisun Theatre
Company”, in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor. He
has periodically been visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge,
Sheffield, and Yale.
During
the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For
this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and
was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Soyinka has
published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and
his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.
As
dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M.
Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its
combination of dance, music, and action. He bases his writing on the mythology
of his own tribe-the Yoruba-with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre.
He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers
and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at
Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963. Later, satirical comedies
are The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, publ. 1963) with its
sequel, Jero’s Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of
the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongi’s Harvest (performed
1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ.
1971). Among Soyinka’s serious philosophic plays are (apart from “The Swamp
Dwellers“) The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The
Road ( 1965) and Death and the King’s Horseman (performed 1976,
publ. 1975). In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the
Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977,
publ. 1981), bases himself on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and Brecht’s The
Threepenny Opera. Soyinka’s latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants
(1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).
Soyinka
has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a
complicated work which has been compared to Joyce’s and Faulkner’s, in which
six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and
Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer’s thoughts during
his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology
of the Yoruba. Purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972)
and the account of his childhood, Aké ( 1981), in which the parents’
warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected
in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).
Soyinka’s
poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in Idanre,
and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in
the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela’s
Earth and Other Poems (1988).
