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VENO tv: Hurrah! Nobel Laureate. Pro.Wole Soyinka Clocks 90, FG Names National Theatre in his honour + Veno Salutes KONGI @ 90..
Date: 13-07-24

Biography !

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, â€œThe 1960 Masksâ€ and in 1964, the â€œOrisun Theatre Companyâ€, 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, Jeroâ€™s Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongiâ€™s Harvest (performed 1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ. 1971). Among Soyinkaâ€™s serious philosophic plays are (apart from â€œThe Swamp Dwellersâ€œ) The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The Road ( 1965) and Death and the Kingâ€™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 Gayâ€™s Beggarâ€™s Opera and Brechtâ€™s The Threepenny Opera. Soyinkaâ€™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 Joyceâ€™s and Faulknerâ€™s, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writerâ€™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, AkÃ© ( 1981), in which the parentsâ€™ warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).

Soyinkaâ€™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 Mandelaâ€™s Earth and Other Poems (1988).

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1986, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1987
Recently, a major road was renamed after him in Abuja and consequently, National Art Theatre Iganmu has been renewed after him courtesy of Federal government of Nigeria in commemoration of his 90th birthday.
However, Veno International Magazine in conjunction with Veno Prayer Centre led Prophet Dr.Amb.Sanya Ojo a.k.a Anjonu Eledumare SOMH felicitate with the Nobel Laureate, Pro.Wole Soyinka on his 90 birthday..90 Gbosa to Kongi..

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