Lagos — Playwright and Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, on Monday attained the ripe age of 75. He was born on July 13, 1934. He was educated at St. Peter’s School, Ake, Abeokuta; Abeokuta Grammar School, Abeokuta between 1944 and 1945 before he went to Government College, Ibadan from 1946 to 1950 where he rounded off his post primary education. He attended the University College, Ibadan from 1952 to 1954 and the University of Leeds, UK (1954 to 1957) obtaining a degree in English literature thereafter.
He worked briefly at the Royal Court Theatre in London as a play reader and later as a dramaturgic receiving Rockfeller Bursary before returning home to study African drama. In 1960 he founded the theatre group, The 1960 Masks and in 1964 the Orisun Theatre Company from which he produced his own plays and took part in acting. While home he taught at the Universities of Lagos, Ibadan and Ife.
Soyinka, through his plays, projects traditional Nigerian themes and stories. He has being recognised as a dramatic poet and skilled dramatic craftsman. His plays deal with a great diversity of themes – from the farce of The Trials of Brother Jero, to the romanticism of The Lion and the Jewel, to the tragedy of The Strong Breed. He is also concerned with universal problems, as his plays examine town life, a retrograde countryside, and the ambitions of the "new" Nigerians.
His ability to juxtapose the past and the present was reflected in his play A Dance in the Forest in which selfishness, dishonesty and lust was personified as elements in all societies past and present.
Through drama, poetry, essays, and autobiographies, Soyinka has documented not only the struggles of his homeland of Nigeria but of the African continent as a whole.
His works earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986.
Besides obtaining a doctoral degree from the University of Leeds, UK in 1973, he can boast of numerous honorary doctoral degrees, which include: honorary doctoral degree from the University of Yale in 1980; Morehouse College in 1988; doctor of letters from the University of Toronto in 1992; Addis Ababa University in 2003 and doctor of humane letters from Princeton in 2005 to mention a few.
Source: AHU – David A-O