Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (b. July 13, 1934) is a Nigerian writer (considered to be Africa's most distinguished playwright) and the first African winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986.

Chronology

1934: Born Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka on July 13 in Ijebu Isara in Western Nigeria. His father Ayo was a school supervisor and his mother Eniola "a trader."

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1934 - July 13

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1957: Begins work for M. A. at Leeds but abandons graduate studies to work in theater; serves as play reader for Royal Court Theatre, London.

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September 1958: Produces The Swamp Dwellers for the University of London Drama Festival.

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February 1959: The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel produced in Ibadan; November: Writes, produces, and acts in a An Evening without Decor, a medley of his work, at the Royal Court Theatre, London; attacks racism and colonial repression in Africa in these and other works.

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1960: Returns to Nigeria; March: The Trials of Brother Jero produced at Ibadan; May: Acts role of Yang Sun in The Good Woman of Setzuan at Ibadan; October: completes, directs, and acts in A Dance of the Forests with his own acting company, 1960 Masks.

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1961-1964: Directs plays by other playwrights, Ibadan; attacks political intriguing, corruption, and manipulation of mass media in The (new) Republican and Before the Blackout.

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1961 - 1964

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1960-1962: Rockefeller Research Fellow; attached to English Department at the University of Ibadan studying African drama; December: "Towards a True Theatre" (essay); writes political satire on based on emergency in Western Nigeria.

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1960 - 1962

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1962-1963: Lecturer, Department of English, University of Ife

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1962 - 1963

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1963: Culture in Transition (film)

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December 1964: Founds, with others, the Drama Association of Nigeria.

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1965: The Interpreters (novel) published in London; April: Writes and directs Before the Blackout, Orisun Theatre; directs Kongi's Harvest, Lagos; September: records The Detainee for BBC in London.

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1965-1967: Senior lecturer, Department of English, University of Lagos; criticizes personality cults and dictatorship in Africa.

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1965 - 1967

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April 1966: Revives Kongi's Harvest, Dakkar festival; June: Trials of Brother Jero produced, Hampstead Theatre Club, London; December: The Lion and the Jewel , Royal Court Theatre, London; shares John Whiting Award with Tom Stoppard.

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1967: Head of the Department of Theater Arts, University of Ibadan; June: "The Writer in a Modern African State;" August to October 1969 imprisoned for writings sympathetic to secessionist Biafra; September: The Lion and the Jewel produced Accra; November: Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed produced, Greenwich Mews Theatre, New York; Idanre and Other Poems.

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1967 - 1969

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April 1968: Kongi's Harvest, produced by Negro Ensemble Company, New York.

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February 1969: The Road produced by Theatre Limited, Kampala, Uganda; Poems from Prison, London.

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August 1970: Completes and directs Madmen and Specialists with Ibadan University Theare Arts Company in New Haven, Connecticut (at Yale?); play tours to Harlem; directs plays by Pirandello and others; Kongi's Harvest (film).

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1971: A Shuttle in the Crypt (poems); March: revives Madmen and Specialists in Ibadan; acts Patrice Lumumba in John Littlewood's French production of Conor Cruise O'Brien's Murderous Angels, Paris; testifies before Kazeem Enquiry on violation of students' rights.

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1972: Publishes his prison notes, The Man Died, London; July: produces extracts from A Dance of the Forests in Paris.

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1973: Honorary Ph. D., University of Leeds; Season of Anomy (novel); Collected Plays I; August: National Theatre, London, produces Bacchae of Euripides, which it commissioned.

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1973-74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of English, University of Sheffield; Collected Plays II.

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1973 - 74

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1975: Edited Poems of Black Africa, London and New York; "Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Tradition" (essay); attacks Idi Amin in Transition.

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1976: Ogun Abibiman (poems); Myth, Literature, and the African World; Visiting Professor, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon; Professor, University of Ife; September: Nairobi High School production of A Dance of the Forests; October: French production of A Dance of the Forests, Dakar, Gambia; December: produces Death and the King's Horseman, Ife.

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1978: "Language as Boundary" (essay)

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1981: Aké: The Years of Childhood (autobiography); Opera Wonyosi, an adaptation of Brecht's Three Penny Opera; "The Critic and Society: Barthes, Leftocracy, and Other Mythologies" (essay).

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1982: Blues for the Prodigal (film) released; "Cross Currents: The 'New African' after Cultural Encounters" (essay).

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December 1983: Die Still, Rev. Dr. Godspeak (radio play); Requiem for a Futurologist (play) produced at Ife university; Blues for a Prodigal (film); "Shakespeare and the Living Dramatist" (essay); (July) - Unlimited Liability Company (phonograph recording).

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1984: A Play of Giants (play)

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1985: Requiem for a Futorologist published; "Climates of Art" (Herbert Read Memorial Lecture), Institute of Contemporary Art, London.

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1986: Nobel Prize for Literature. "The External Encounter: Ambivalence in African Arts and Literature" (essay), A Play of Giants (play), Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University; Agip Prize for Literature; 1986 (October); Awarded of Nigeria's second highest honour, Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR.;

Related Topics:
1986 - Nobel Prize for Literature

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1987: Six Plays; Childe Internationale (play) republished.

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1989: "The Search" (short story).

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1991: Sisi Clara Workshop on Theatre (Lagos); A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play) BBC African Service; "The Credo of Being and Nothingness" (The First Rev. Olufosoye Annual Lecture in Religion, delivered at the University of Ibadan on January 25th, 1991; published

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1991 - January 25th

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1992: From Zia With Love

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1993: honorary doctorate, Harvard University

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1994: Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946-1965) (autobiography); Memories of a Nigerian Childhood; Flees Nigeria (November).

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1995: The Beatification of Area Boy,

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1996: The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis

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March 1997: Charged with treason by military dictatorship.

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Considered one of the greatest African poets alongside Cesair,Senghor,Okigbo,Ohanyido,Okara,Clark and so forth.

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http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/soyinka/soyinkatl.html

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2005: Together with Nigerian elder statesman Chief Anthony Enahoro, he convened an alternative national confab under the aegis of PRONACO (Pro -national conference group).

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