 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature | |
|---|---|
| Wole Soyinka | |
 "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence." | |
| Date |
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| Location | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Presented by | Swedish Academy |
| First awarded | 1901 |
| Website | Official website |
The 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka (born 1934) "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence." [1] He is the first African recipient of the prize. [2] [3]
Wole Soyinka is most well known for his playwriting with The Lion and the Jewel (1959), A Dance of the Forests (1960), Kongi's Harvest (1964), and Death and the King's Horseman (1975) as among his best works. Along with his writing career, he has worked as an actor and in theaters in Nigeria and Great Britain. Poems, novels, and essays are also included in his body of work, among them The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1972), and Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981). Although Soyinka writes in English, the Yoruba culture of his home Nigeria and its myths, stories, and rituals are deeply ingrained in his writings. His writing also draws from Western traditions, from modernist play to classical tragedies. [4]
When Soyinka was awarded, he became the first African laureate. [2] 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." [5]
His Nobel lecture, This Past Must Address Its Present, was devoted to the 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. [6]
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Nigerian literature may be roughly defined as the literary writing by citizens of the nation of Nigeria for Nigerian readers, addressing Nigerian issues. This encompasses writers in a number of languages, including not only English but Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, and in the northern part of the county Hausa and Nupe. More broadly, it includes British Nigerians, Nigerian Americans and other members of the African diaspora.
Yoruba literature is the spoken and written literature of the Yoruba people, one of the largest ethno-linguistic groups in Nigeria and the rest of Africa. The Yoruba language is spoken in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, as well as in dispersed Yoruba communities throughout the world.
Femi Euba is a Nigerian actor, writer, and dramatist, who has published numerous works of drama, theory, and fiction. His work as a theatre practitioner encompasses acting, playwriting, and directing. Among the topics of his plays is Yoruba culture.
Tanure Ojaide is a Nigerian poet and academic. As a writer, he is noted for his unique stylistic vision and for his intense criticism of imperialism, religion, and other issues. He is regarded as a socio-political and an ecocentric poet. He won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa with his collection Songs of Myself: A Quartet (2017).
Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa is a pan-African writing prize awarded biennially to the best literary work produced by an African. It was established by the Lumina Foundation in 2005 in honour of Africa's first Nobel Laureate in Literature, Wole Soyinka, who presents the prize, which is chosen by an international jury of literary figures. Administered by the Lumina Foundation, the prize has been described as "the African equivalent of the Nobel Prize".
Kongi's Harvest is a 1970s Nigerian drama film directed by Ossie Davis. The film was adapted from a screenplay by Wole Soyinka adapted from his 1965 play of the same name. Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright, poet, and the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, also starred in the leading role as the dictator of an African nation.
Ber Anena born and previously published as Harriet Anena is a Ugandan writer and performer, whose writing includes poetry, nonfiction and fiction. She is the author of a collection of poems, A Nation In Labour, published in 2015, won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. The Economist described her poetry performance as "an arresting evocation of love and war".
Odia Ofeimun is a Nigerian poet and polemicist, the author of many volumes of poetry, books of political essays and on cultural politics, and the editor of two significant anthologies of Nigerian poetry. His work has been widely anthologized and translated and he has read and performed his poetry internationally.
The Interpreters is a novel by Wole Soyinka, first published in London by André Deutsch in 1965 and later republished as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. It is the first and one of the only three novels written by Soyinka; he is principally known as a playwright. The novel was written in English and later translated into a number of languages.
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy on 13 October 2016. He is the 12th Nobel laureate from the United States.
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy on 5 October 2017.
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The 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, better known with his pen name J. M. G. Le Clézio, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." He became the 14th French-language author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature after Claude Simon in 1985 and was followed later by Patrick Modiano in 2014.
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The 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the South African novelist John Maxwell Coetzee, better known simply as J. M. Coetzee, "who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider." He is the fourth African writer to be so honoured and the second South African after Nadine Gordimer in 1991.
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