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
family forward hug looked talk
What I looked forward to so much was the day I would hug Abiola, but that never happened. Let us not talk about that now. Let us concentrate on the inspiration that Abiola and his family have been to us.
burden continue mortality reckoning scales shoulders thus
The scales of reckoning with mortality are never evenly weighted, alas, and thus it is on the shoulders of the living that the burden of justice must continue to rest.
pessimism time using
I ceased using words like optimism and pessimism a long time ago.
commence great human lead mass model regarded states stunted trauma younger
Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal.
magnetic situations
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
forms objects suppress terror truth
Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.
time
I've done a lot of guerrilla theater in my time.
disposal human therefore
Before you're a writer, you're a citizen, a human being, and therefore the weapons of the citizen are at your disposal to use or not use.
time
I like to say, 'I spend one-third of my time in Nigeria, one-third in Europe or America, and one-third on a plane.'
craft prizes rather
In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual.
african alien concept dare political society suggest
Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of.
assume meals
You always assume for some strange reason that you need three meals a day.
centered civil mexico wars
Some of the greatest uprisings and consequent civil wars in Mexico have centered squarely on the ownership of land.
excessive taken time
An excessive amount of my time is taken with political involvement. It's unavoidable; that's my temperament.