Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinkais a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honored in that category...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth13 July 1934
CityAbeokuta, Nigeria
CountryNigeria
hero perfect community
Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.
gun play voice
. . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare - how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.
people visionaries anticipate
The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns.
firsts facts evolution
Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
children father stories
My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.
confidence thinking self
I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.
taken thinking names
Well, I think the Yoruba gods are truthful. Truthful in the sense that i consider religion and the construct of deities simply an extension of human qualities taken, if you like, to the nth degree. i mistrust gods who become so separated from humanity that enormous crimes can be committed in their names. i prefer gods who can be brought down to earth and judged, if you like.
adventure pride giving
Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
hands dip pot
The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
sometimes poet
Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
twilight sadness kissing
Sadness is twilight's kiss on earth.
atmosphere culture grew
I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.
our-world ideas peaceful
The arrogant elimination of the Djaouts of our world must nerve us to pursue our own combative doctrine, namely: that peaceful cohabitation on this planet demands that while the upholders of any creed are free to adopt their own existential absolutes, the right of others to do the same is thereby rendered implicit and sacrosanct. Thus the creed of inquiry, of knowledge and exchange of ideas, must be upheld as an absolute, as ancient and eternal as any other.
definitions minorities accepting
I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.