Wole+Soyinka

One of the most prominent members of the eminent Ransome-Kuti family, his mother Grace Eniola, was the daughter of [|Rev. Canon JJ Ransome-Kuti], sister to Olusegun Azariah Ransome-Kuti and Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, making Soyinka cousins to the late Fela Kuti, the late [|Beko Ransome-Kuti] , the late [|Olikoye Ransome-Kuti] and [|Yemisi Ransome-Kuti]. [|[3]] Soyinka was born into a [|Yoruba] family in [|Abeokuta], specifically, a Remo family from [|Isara-Remo] on July 13, 1934. His father was Christian Clergy, Canon SA Soyinka (aka "Teacher pupa" (light skinned teacher)). 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) where he founded the pyrates confraternity (an anti-corruption and justice seeking student organization) and the [|University of Leeds] (1954–1957) from which he received an First class 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 (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife). He became a Professor of [|Comparative Literature] at the then University of Ife in 1975. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the same university. Soyinka has played an active role in [|Nigeria's] political history. In 1965, he made a broadcast demanding the cancellation of the rigged Western Nigeria Regional Elections following his seizure of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio. He was arrested, arraigned but freed on a technicality by Justice Esho. In 1967, during the [|Nigerian Civil War] he was arrested by the Federal Government of General [|Yakubu Gowon] and put in solitary confinement for his attempts at brokering a peace between the warring Nigerian and [|Biafran] parties. While in prison he wrote poetry on tissue paper which was published in a collection titled //Poems from Prison//. He was released 22 months later after international attention was drawn to his unwarranted imprisonment. His experiences in prison are recounted in his book // [|The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka] // (1972). He has been an implacable, consistent and outspoken critic of many Nigerian military dictators, 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". This activism has often exposed him to great personal risk, most notable during the government of General [|Sani Abacha] (1993–1998), which pronounced a death sentence on him "in absentia". During Abacha's regime, Soyinka escaped from Nigeria via the "Nadeco Route" on motorcycle. While abroad, he visited parliaments and conferred with world leaders to impose a regime of sanctions against the brutal Abacha regime. These actions and his setting up of the Radio Kudirat helped immensely in securing Nigeria's return to civilian democratic governance. Living abroad, mainly in the United States, he was a professor at [|Emory University] in Atlanta. When civilian rule returned in 1999, Soyinka returned to a hero's welcome back in Lagos, Nigeria. He accepted an Emeritus Professorship 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 Marymount Institute Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, US. [|[4]]
 * Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka** (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", [|[1]] [2] and became the first African to be so honoured. In 1994, he was designated UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication.