Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, playwright, and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty-five plays and five memoirs. He has also written two translated works and many articles and short stories for newspapers and periodicals. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence".

Born into an Anglican Yoruba family in Aké, Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education at Government College, Ibadan, and proceeded to the University College Ibadan. During his education, he co-founded the Pyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at the University of Leeds. During that period, he was the editor of the university's magazine, The Eagle, before becoming a full-time author in the 1950s. In the UK, he started writing short stories and making records for the BBC Lecture series. He wrote many plays which were performed on radios and in theatres in Nigeria and the UK, especially the Royal Court Theatre.

Many of Soyinka's novels and plays are set in Nigeria, reflecting the country's history, culture, and political struggles. Alongside these works, he has produced a wide range of satirical writings that have reached a broad audience and enjoyed considerable popularity. He is also an accomplished poet, with numerous individual poems and several published collections to his name. He has achieved success with his plays, including The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Lion and the Jewel (1959), and The Invention (1957), an early play produced at the Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka has written a number of other works, including The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1973), Death and the King's Horseman, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (2021), and Harmattan Haze on an African Spring (2012). In July 2024, Bola Tinubu renamed the National Arts Theatre after Soyinka during his 90th birthday.