Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, essayist, critic, poet, and professor, whose works celebrating African culture and lambasting European imperialism occupy important places in 20th-century arts and letters. His work draws from both Western traditions and those of Yoruba mythology and symbolism. He was the first African to win the Nobel Prize, was awarded several honorary degrees, received numerous literary awards, and is currently a Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University.
Soyinka was born in 1934 in western Nigeria. He was caught between the English world of his parents and the world of his grandfather, who taught him the Yoruba religion and customs and sent...
