Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka, full name Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (1934— ). Nigerian playwright, poet, and novelist. A member of the Yoruba people, he studied at the University of Ibadan and Leeds University, England. In 1960 he returned to Nigeria and formed a national theatre company; later that year his first important play, The Dance of the Forests, was staged to mark Nigerian independence. Later plays, such as The Strong Breed (1963) and Death and the King’s Horsemen (1975), combine Western dramatic techniques with traditional African styles and subject matter. His novels include The Interpreters (1965) and Isara (1990). During the Nigerian Civil War he was imprisoned (1967-69) for supposedly aiding the Biafran rebels. This experience inspired his Poems from Prison (1969) and the prose account The Man Died (1972). In 1986 Soyinka became the first Black African to receive the Nobel Prize. Recent work includes the play A Scourge of Hyacinths (1992).
