Wole Soyinka author page

Wole Soyinka biography

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, born 13 July 1934 in Abeokuta, western Nigeria, is a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and essayist. He studied at Government College, Ibadan, University College Ibadan, and the University of Leeds.

Soyinka has authored more than forty works including plays, novels, short story collections, essays, poems, and memoirs.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, becoming the first African laureate in this category.

His memoir Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981) recounts his early years in a Yoruba town and later in Ibadan, and won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1983.