A Yoruba born in Western Nigeria (in 1934) and educated in Ibadan, and Leeds Universiy England, Wole Soyinka was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature - in 1986. He has authored over forty works in the medium of plays, novels, poetry, essays, and biographies, many of which have received world-wide translations as well as theatre performances. He is active on artistic, academic and Human Rights organisations such as the International Theatre Institute, UNESCO, the International Parliament of Writers etc. He is recipient of numerous academic and national honours, and holds traditional titles in his own country. Wole Soyinka continues to lecture extensively within Nigeria and internationally, and currently holds positions as Emeritus Professor at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, Hutchins Fellow, Harvard University, USA, and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, UK. He currently teaches at New York University, Abu Dhabi, where he is Arts Professor of Drama.
The Lion and the Jewel; Death and the King’s Horseman are among his most celebrated plays while his poems are collected in IDANRE; MANDELA’S EARTH and Other Poems; SAMARKAND and Other Markets I Have Known. His autobiographical works encompassing childhood, youth and adult political and literary activities, comprise : AKE, The Years of Childhood; IBADAN The Penkelemes Years; YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN. His corpus of prose fiction includes The Interpreters; Season of Anomie and CHRONICLES from the Land of the Happiest People in the World (BookCraft). His most recent play, CANTICLES for a Pyre Foretold was premiered in 2024 simultaneously in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and Ibadan, Nigeria.
He is married, with children, and lives in Ijegba, ABEOKUTA, Ogun State, Nigeria.
