1957–1967: Early career in 2020. Most of Soyinka's early plays were performed in the theatre. Soyinka remained in
Leeds after getting his BA honours in English in 1957. In 1957, he began writing his first play,
The Swamp Dwellers and
The Lion and the Jewel. Soyinka moved to London and worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. He led the Nigerian Drama Group that performed
The Swamp Dwellers in 1958. During that period, his two plays were performed in
Ibadan, Nigeria. In 1957, his play,
The Invention, was produced at
London's
Royal Court Theatre, and was his first work to be produced there. During this period, he wrote poems, including "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which appeared in
Black Orpheus. In 1959, Soyinka returned to Nigeria after receiving a
Rockefeller Research Fellowship for his research on African theatre. In November of the same year, he replaced
Janheinz Jahn as the co-editor of
Black Orpheus. In 1960, he completed his radio play,
Camwood on the Leaves, and his play
The Trials of Brother Jero premiered in the Mellanby Hall residence of University College Ibadan in April 1960. He formed the 1960s Mask, a theatre group. His play,
A Dance of The Forest, became the official play for the
Nigerian Independence Day and on 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos. Soyinka's first full-length play, ''My Father's Burden'', was directed by
Olusegun Olusola and it was featured on the
Western Nigeria Television on 6 August 1960. In 1962, Soyinka wrote essays that defended Nigerian literacy during that period including "Death and the King's Horsemen" and "Towards a True Theater", which were published in
Transition Magazine. In the same year, he was appointed lecturer at
Obafemi Awolowo University in
Ifẹ. In 1963, his first feature-length movie,
Culture in Transition, was released. Soyinka resigned from his university post in 1964, as a protest against imposed pro-government behaviour by the authorities. He claimed the university's authorities aligned the institution with the unpopular government of
Samuel Ladoke Akintola. During that period, he produced
The Lion and the Jewel in a season of plays in English and
Yoruba as well as formed The Orisun Theatre Company, a theatre group. In 1965, he produced satirical play,
Before the Blackout. His play, ''Kongi's Harvest
, premiered in August in Lagos. On 14 September 1965, his play The Road premiered in London at the Commonwealth Arts Festival and at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Soyinka was appointed as the senior lecturer at the University of Lagos. Soon, his novel, The Interpreters
, was published in London by André Deutsch. In the same year, he was arrested for the first time, charged with holding up a radio station at gunpoint and replacing the tape of a recorded speech by the premier of Western Region with a different tape containing accusations of electoral malpractice. He was released after some months of confinement as a result of protests by the international community of writers. He also wrote The Detainee'', a radio play for
BBC in London.
1966–1968: Nigerian Civil War After becoming Chair of Drama at the
University of Ibadan, Soyinka became politically active. Following the
military coup of January 1966, he secretly met with
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of the
Southeastern Nigeria in an effort to avert the
Nigerian Civil War. He also went to Ẹnugu, where he met his fellow Yoruba man, Victor Banjọ, who works with the Biafran government. Soyinka, who sought the support of Western Region military leaders, delivered Banjo's message to
Lieutenant Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, who had recently been appointed as commanding officer for the
Western Region. Four evenings after Soyinka returned to the West, Biafran forces invaded the Midwest region. Following the occupation of the Midwest, Soyinka met Obasanjo to tell him the aim of Biafrans since Obasanjo had already decided to align with the Nigerian government. However Biafra's invasion of the Midwest resulted in retaliation by the federal government forces, and the civil war began. Obasanjo disclosed his meeting with Soyinka to the Nigerian government, who declared Soyinka a traitor, hence he was arrested by federal authorities and imprisoned for 22 months. He wrote a significant body of poems and notes criticising the Nigerian government while in prison. In early 1967, his works,
Kongi’s Harvest and
Idanre and Other Poems were published. With
Tom Stoppard, he received the
John Whiting Award in London. He was also appointed Head of the School of Drama, University of Ibadan but unable to take up the position because of his imprisonment in August. Despite his imprisonment, his play
The Lion and The Jewel was produced in
Accra, Ghana in September 1967. In November,
The Trials of Brother Jero and
The Strong Breed were produced in the Greenwich Mews Theatre in
New York City by Off-Broadway. In 1968, Soyinka received the
Jock Campbell-New Statesman Award. The
Negro Ensemble Company produced ''
Kongi's Harvest'' at St. Mark's Theatre, New York. He translated
D. O. Fagunwa's
Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale from Yoruba to English. It was published as ''
The Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga''.
Release and literary production In October 1969, few months before the Civil war came to an end, amnesty was proclaimed, and Soyinka and other political prisoners were freed. For the first few months after his release, Soyinka stayed at a friend's farm in southern France, where he sought solitude. He wrote
The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), a reworking of the
Pentheus myth. He also published in London a book of poetry,
Poems from Prison. At the end of the year, he returned to his office as Chair of Drama at Ibadan. In 1970, he produced the play ''Kongi's Harvest
, while simultaneously adapting it as a film of the same title. In June 1970, he finished another play, called Madmen and Specialists''. Together with the group of 15 actors of Ibadan University Theatre Art Company, he went on a trip to the United States, to the
Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center in
Waterford,
Connecticut, where his latest play premiered. In 1971, his poetry collection
A Shuttle in the Crypt was published.
Madmen and Specialists was produced in Ibadan that year. In April 1971, concerned about the political situation in Nigeria, Soyinka resigned from his duties at the University in Ibadan, and began years of voluntary exile. Soyinka travelled to
Paris, France, to take the lead role as
Patrice Lumumba, the murdered first Prime Minister of the
Republic of the Congo, in
Joan Littlewood's May 1971 production of
Murderous Angels,
Conor Cruise O'Brien's play about the
Congo Crisis. In July in Paris, excerpts from Soyinka's well-known play
The Dance of The Forests were performed. In 1972, his novel
Season of Anomy and his
Collected Plays were both published by
Oxford University Press. His powerful autobiographical work
The Man Died, a collection of notes from prison, was also published that year. He was awarded an
Honoris Causa doctorate by the University of Leeds in 1973. In the same year the
National Theatre, London, commissioned and premiered the play
The Bacchae of Euripides, (1973–74) In 1974, Oxford University Press issued his
Collected Plays, Volume II. In 1975, Soyinka was promoted to the position of editor for
Transition Magazine, which was based in the Ghanaian capital of
Accra, where he moved. In the US, he taught at
Cornell University as the
Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991. At
Emory University, he was appointed
Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts in 1996 and has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Soyinka served as scholar-in-residence at
New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at
Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of
Cambridge,
Oxford,
Harvard and
Yale. He was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at
Duke University in 2008. In December 2017, Soyinka received the
Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples". On 1 September 2022, Soyinka took up the appointment of Professor of Theatre at
New York University Abu Dhabi. In 1976, he published his poetry collection
Ogun Abibiman, as well as a collection of essays entitled
Myth, Literature and the African World. In these, Soyinka explores the genesis of mysticism in African theatre and, using examples from both European and African literature, compares and contrasts the cultures. He delivered a series of guest lectures at the
Institute of African Studies at the
University of Ghana in
Legon. In October 1976, the French version of
The Dance of The Forests was performed in
Dakar, while in Ife, his play ''Death and The King's Horseman'' premiered. In 1977,
Opera Wọnyọsi, his adaptation of
Bertolt Brecht's
The Threepenny Opera, was staged in Ibadan. In 1979, Soyinka both directed and acted in
Jon Blair and
Norman Fenton's drama
The Biko Inquest, a work based on the life of
Steve Biko, a South African student and human rights activist who was beaten to death by
apartheid police forces. Soyinka went on to establish another theatrical group, the Guerrilla Unit, which sought to engage directly with local communities. Its purpose was to help them reflect on their challenges and give voice to their grievances through short dramatic performances. In 1983, his play
Requiem for a Futurologist had its first performance at the University of Ife. In July that year, one of his musical projects, the Unlimited Liability Company, issued a long-playing record entitled
I Love My Country, on which several prominent Nigerian musicians played songs composed by Soyinka. In 1984, he directed the film
Blues for a Prodigal, which was screened at the University of Ife. His
A Play of Giants was produced the same year. During the years 1975–84, Soyinka was more politically active. At the University of Ife, his administrative duties included the security of public roads. He criticized the corruption in the government of the democratically elected President
Shehu Shagari. When Shagari was replaced by the army general
Muhammadu Buhari, Soyinka was often at odds with the military. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned his 1972 book
The Man Died: Prison Notes. In 1985, his play
Requiem for a Futurologist was published in London by
Rex Collings.
1986: Nobel Prize winning Soyinka was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, becoming the first African laureate. He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved". He also notes that "it is the first Nobel Prize awarded to an African writer or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire." His Nobel acceptance speech, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was devoted to South African freedom-fighter
Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of
apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the
National South African government.
1988–present: Later career In 1988, his collection of poems ''Mandela's Earth, and Other Poems
was published, while in Nigeria another collection of essays, entitled Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture'', appeared. In the same year, Soyinka accepted the position of Professor of African Studies and Theatre at
Cornell University. In 1989, a third novel, inspired by his father's intellectual circle,
Ìsarà: A Voyage around Essay, appeared ("Essay" being the nickname of his father S. A. Soyinka). In July 1991, the
BBC African Service transmitted Soyinka's radio play
A Scourge of Hyacinths, and the next year (1992) in
Siena (Italy), his play
From Zia with Love had its premiere. Both works are very bitter political parodies, based on events that took place in Nigeria in the 1980s. In 1993, Soyinka was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Harvard University. The following year, another part of his autobiography appeared:
Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946–1965). In 1995, his play,
The Beatification of Area Boy, was published. In October 1994, he was appointed
UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Promotion of African culture, human rights, freedom of expression, media and communication. In November 1994, Soyinka fled from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the border with
Benin, and then went to the United States. In 1996, his book
The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis was first published. In 1997, he was charged with treason by the government of General
Sani Abacha. The International Parliament of Writers (IPW) was established in 1993 to provide support for writers victimized by persecution. Soyinka became the organization's second president, serving in the role from 1997 to 2000. In 1999, a new volume of poems by Soyinka, entitled
Outsiders, was released. That same year, a BBC-commissioned play called
Document of Identity aired on
BBC Radio 3, telling the lightly-fictionalized story of the problems his daughter's family encountered during a stopover in
Britain when they fled Nigeria for the US in 1996; her son, Oseoba Airewele was born in
Luton and became a stateless person. Soyinka's play
King Baabu premièred in Lagos in 2001, a political satire on the theme of African dictatorship. In April 2007, Soyinka called for the cancellation of the Nigerian presidential elections held two weeks earlier, beset by widespread fraud and violence. In the wake of the
attempted bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States by a Nigerian student who had become radicalised in Britain, Soyinka questioned the
British government's social logic in allowing every religion to openly proselytise their faith, asserting that it was being abused by religious fundamentalists, thereby turning England into, in his view, a cesspit for the breeding of extremism. He supported the freedom of worship, but warned against the consequence of the illogic of allowing religions to preach apocalyptic violence. In August 2014, Soyinka delivered a recording of his speech "From Chibok with Love" to the
World Humanist Congress in
Oxford, hosted by the
International Humanist and Ethical Union and the
British Humanist Association. The Congress theme was
Freedom of thought and expression: Forging a 21st Century Enlightenment. He was awarded the 2014
International Humanist Award. He served as Arts Professor of Theatre at
NYU's Institute of African American Affairs. In December 2020, Soyinka described
2020 as the most challenging year in the nation's history, saying: "With the turbulence that characterised year 2020, and as activities wind down, the mood has been repugnant and very negative. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but this is one of the most pessimistic years I have known in this nation and it wasn't just because of
COVID-19. Natural disasters had happened elsewhere, but how have you managed to take such in their strides?" September 2021 saw the publication of
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka's first novel in almost 50 years, described in the
Financial Times as "a brutally satirical look at power and corruption in Nigeria, told in the form of a whodunnit involving three university friends." Reviewing the book in
The Guardian,
Ben Okri said: "It is Soyinka's greatest novel, his revenge against the insanities of the nation's ruling class and one of the most shocking chronicles of an African nation in the 21st century. It ought to be widely read." The
film adaptation by
Biyi Bandele of Soyinka's 1975 stage play ''
Death and the King's Horseman, co-produced by Netflix and Ebonylife TV, titled Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman'', premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2022. It is Soyinka's first work to be made into a feature film internationally, and the first
Yoruba-language film to premiere at TIFF. Around July 2023, Soyinka came under severe criticism, after writing an open letter to the Emir of Ilorin,
Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, over the cancellation of the Isese festival proposed by an
Osun priestess, Omolara Olatunji. Two films have been made about this period of his life.
The Man Died, directed by
Awam Amkpa, is a feature film based on a fictionalized form of Soyinka's 1973 prison memoirs of the same title.
Ebrohimie Road, written and directed by
Kola Tubosun, explores the Ibadan house where Soyinka lived between 1967, when he returned to direct the School of Drama, and 1972, when he left for exile following his released from prison. ==Personal life==