A living legend - WOLE SOYINKA

It's no doubt how true our heading sounds, because when you see him in public, with the sight of his neat though unshaved but well combed white hair, you'll indeed conclude that He is a legend. Its no other than WOLE SOYINKA. Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, notable especially as a playwright and poet; he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature , the first person in Africa and the diaspora to be so honoured. 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. He is also a vigorous critic of contemporary literature and has engaged in heated debates with others Africans who have accused him of writing in an obscure idiom that owes more to European traditions than Nigerian ones. In turn, he has argued against the Négritude movement, stating that "The Tiger does not boast of his tigritude." A passionate attachment to his Yoruba roots combined with a fearless experimentalism has continued to make him a controversial figure.Much of his later writing has been satire directed against corrupt African leaders such as Bokassa and Amin, whose predecessors invarious African states were targets of such plays as Madmen and Specialists. He is notably known for Quotes such as: -'EVEN WHEN I'M WRITING PLAYS, I ENJOY HAVING COMPANY AND MENTALLY I THINK OF THAT COMPANY AS THE COMPANY AM WRITING FOR' -'POWER IS DOMINATION, CONTROL, AND THEREFORE A VERY SELECTIVE FORM OF TRUTH WHICH IS A LIE' - 'AND I BELIEVE THAT THE BEST LEARNING PROCESS OF ANY KIND OF CRAFT IS JUST TO LOOK AT THE WORK OF OTHERS' -'BOOKS AND ALL FORMS OF WRITING ARE TERROR TO THOSE WHO WISH TO SUPPRESS THE TRUTH' In 1957 his play The Invention was the first of his works to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. At that time his only published works were poems such as "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which were published in the Nigerian magazine Black Orpheus. This was founded in 1957 by the German scholar Ulli Beier , who had been teaching at the University of Ibadan since 1950. Soyinka received a Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College in Ibadan, his alma mater, for research on African theatre , and he returned to Nigeria. He produced his new satire The Trials of Brother Jero . His work, A Dance of The Forest (1960), a biting criticism of Nigeria's political elites, won a contest that year as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day . On 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos as Nigeria celebrated its sovereignty. Also in 1960, Soyinka established the "Nineteen-Sixty Masks", an amateur acting ensemble to which he devoted considerable time over the next few years. Soyinka published works satirising the ' Emergency ' in the Western Region of Nigeria,as his Yorùbá homeland was increasingly occupied and controlled by the federal government. when the civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed. For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend’s farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. He wrote The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of the Pentheus myth. He soon published in London a book of poetry, Poemsfrom Prison . At the end of the year, he returned to his office as Headmaster of Cathedral of Drama in Ibadan, and cooperated in the founding of the literary periodical Black Orpheus. And together with scientists and men of theatre, Soyinka founded the Drama Association of Nigeria...