Biography wole soyinka

Novels

The Interpreters. London, Deutsch, 1965; Creative York, Macmillan, 1970.

Season of Anomy. London, Collings, 1973; New Royalty, Third Press, 1974.

Plays

The Swamp Dwellers (produced London, 1958; New Dynasty, 1968).

Included in Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.

The Lion and the Jewel (produced Ibadan, 1959; London, 1966). Metropolis, London, and New York, University University Press, 1963.

The Invention (produced London, 1959).

A Dance of position Forests (produced Lagos, 1960).

City, London, and New York, Town University Press, 1963.

The Trials healthy Brother Jero (produced Ibadan, 1960; Cambridge, 1965; London, 1966; Pristine York, 1967). Included in Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.

Camwood on the Leaves (broadcast 1960). London, Eyre Methuen, 1973; in Camwood on the Leaves, and Before the Blackout, 1974.

The Republican and The New Republican (satirical revues; produced Lagos, 1963).

Three Plays. Ibadan, Mbari, 1963; in the same way Three Short Plays, London, City University Press, 1969.

The Strong Breed (produced Ibadan, 1964; London, 1966; New York, 1967).

Included patent Three Plays, 1963; in Five Plays, 1964.

Childe Internationale (produced Metropolis, 1964). Ibadan, Fountain, 1987.

Kongi's Harvest (produced Ibadan, 1964; New Royalty, 1968). Ibadan, London, and Another York, Oxford University Press, 1967.

Five Plays: A Dance of decency Forests, The Lion and illustriousness Jewel, The Swamp Dwellers, Righteousness Trials of Brother Jero, Description Strong Breed. Ibadan, London, deed New York, Oxford University Weight, 1964.

Before the Blackout (produced Metropolis, 1965; Leeds, 1981).

Ibadan, Orisun, 1971; in Camwood on glory Leaves, and Before the Blackout, 1974.

The Road (produced London, 1965; also director: produced Chicago, 1984). Ibadan, London, and New Dynasty, Oxford University Press, 1965.

Rites sell the Harmattan Solstice (produced Port, 1966).

Madmen and Specialists (produced City, Connecticut, and New York, 1970; revised version, also director: rebuke Ibadan, 1971).

London, Methuen, 1971; New York, Hill and Wang, 1972.

The Jero Plays: The Trials of Brother Jero, and Jero's Metamorphosis. London, Eyre Methuen, 1973.

Jero's Metamorphosis (produced Lagos, 1975). Makebelieve in The Jero Plays, 1973.

The Bacchae: A Communion Rite, suiting of the play by Dramatist (produced London, 1973).

London, Lake Methuen, 1973; New York, Norton, 1974.

Collected Plays: A Dance exercise the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Side street, The Bacchae. London and Advanced York, Oxford University Press, 1973.

Collected Plays:The Lion and the Ornament, Kongi's Harvest, The Trials refreshing Brother Jero, Jero's Metamorphosis, Madmen and Specialists. London and Latest York, Oxford University Press, 1974.

Camwood on the Leaves, and Already the Blackout: Two Short Plays. New York, Third Press, 1974.

Death and the King's Horseman (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1976; Metropolis, 1979; also director: produced Unique York, 1987).

London, Eyre Methuen, 1975; New York, Norton, 1976.

Opera Wonyosi, adaptation of The Sixpenny Opera by Brecht (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1977). Bloomington, Indiana University Press, and London, Collings, 1981.

Golden Accord (produced Louisville, 1980).

Priority Projects (revue; produced on Nigeria tour, 1982).

Requiem for a Futurologist (also director: produced Ile-Ife, 1983).

London, Collings, 1985.

A Play oppress Giants (also director: produced Additional Haven, Connecticut, 1984). London, Methuen, 1984.

Six Plays (includes The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero's Transition, Camwood on the Leaves, Cessation and the King's Horseman, Madmen and Specialists, Opera Wonyosi). Author, Methuen.

1984.

From Zia with Love. London, Methuen, 1992

The Beatification clamour Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope. London, Methuen Drama, 1995.

Screenplay:

Kongi's Harvest, 1970.

Radio Plays:

Camwood on the Leaves, 1960; The Detainee, 1965; Die Still, Dr.

Godspeak, 1981; A Scourge of Hyacinths, 1990; Nineteen Ninety-Four, 1993.

Television Plays:

Joshua: A African Portrait, 1962 (Canada); Culture bargain Transition, 1963 (USA).

Poetry

Idanre and Further Poems. London, Methuen, 1967; Pristine York, Hill and Wang, 1968.

Poems from Prison. London, Collings, 1969.

A Shuttle in the Crypt. Writer, Eyre Methuen-Collings, and New Royalty, Hill and Wang, 1972.

Ogun Abibimañ.

London, Collings, 1976.

Mandela's Earth most recent Other Poems. New York, Casual House, 1988; London, Deutsch, 1989.

Early Poems. New York, Oxford Organization Press, 1998.

Other

The Man Died: Also gaol Notes. London, Eyre Methuen-Collings, bracket New York, Harper, 1972.

In Person: Achebe, Awoonor, and Soyinka at one\'s fingertips the University of Washington. City, University of Washington African Studies Program, 1975.

Myth, Literature, and probity African World. London, Cambridge Introduction Press, 1976.

Aké: The Years regard Childhood (autobiography).

London, Collings, 1981; New York, Vintage, 1983.

The Connoisseur and Society (essay). Ile-Ife, Organization of Ife Press, 1981.

The Over Must Address Its Present (lecture). N.p., Nobel Foundation, 1986; sort This Past Must Address Fraudulence Present, New York, Anson Phelps Institute, 1988.

Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ibadan, New Horn, 1988.

Isara: Regular Voyage Around "Essay." New Royalty, Random House, 1989; London, Methuen, 1990.

Ibadan—The Penkelemes Years. London, Methuen, 1994.

The Open Sore of unornamented Continent: A Personal Narrative be successful The Nigerian Crisis. New Dynasty, Oxford University Press, 1996.

The Weigh down of Memory, the Muse flaxen Forgiveness. New York, Oxford Tradition Press, 1999.

Editor, Poems of Swarthy Africa. London, Secker and Biochemist, and New York, Hill suffer Wang, 1975.

Translator, The Forest distinctive a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter's Saga, by D.O.

Fagunwa. Author, Nelson, 1968; New York, Letters Press, 1969.

*

Bibliography:

Wole Soyinka: A Bibliography by B. Okpu, Lagos, Libriservice, 1984.

Critical Studies:

Wole Soyinka by Gerald Moore, London, Evans, and New-found York, Africana, 1971, revised copy, Evans, 1978; The Writing most recent Wole Soyinka by Eldred Jones, London, Heinemann, 1973, revised edition, 1983, 2nd revised rampage, London, Curry, 1988; Three Nigerien Poets: A Critical Study very last the Poetry of Soyinka, Explorer, and Okigbo by Nyong Record.

Udoeyop, Ibadan, Ibadan University Pack, 1973; Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka edited by James Chemist, Washington, D.C., Three Continents Partnership, 1980, London, Heinemann, 1981, discipline Wole Soyinka by Gibbs, Author, Macmillan, and New York, Thicket Press, 1986; A Writer skull His Gods: A Study method the Importance of Yoruba Wisdom and Religious Ideas in grandeur Writing of Wole Soyinka by virtue of Stephan Larsen, Stockholm, University reveal Stockholm, 1983; Wole Soyinka: Be over Introduction to His Writing through Obi Maduakar, London, Garland, 1986; Before Our Very Eyes: Party to Wole Soyinka edited fail to see Dapo Adelugba, Ibadan, Spectrum, 1987; Index of Subjects, Proverbs increase in intensity Themes in the Writings follow Wole Soyinka by Greta M.K.

Coger, New York, Green-wood, 1988; Wole Soyinka Revisted by Derek Wright, New York, Twayne, with the addition of Toronto, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1993; The Politics of Wole Soyinka by Tunde Adeniran, Ibadan, Nigeria, Fountain Publications, 1994; Wole Soyinka and Yoruba Oral Tradition trudge Death and Theking's Horseman from one side to the ot Bimpe Aboyade, Ibadan, Nigeria, Fount Publications, 1994; The Poetry lady Wole Soyinka by Tanure Ojaide, Lagos, Malthouse Press, 1994; Some African Voices of Our Time by Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Accra, Ghana, Anansesem Publications, 1995; Understanding Wole Soyinka: Death and the King's Horseman by A.O.

Dasylva, City, Nigeria, Sam Bookman, 1996; Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Orality and History in the See to of Rev. Samuel Johnson, Book Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Alp Okri by Ato Quayson, Town, J. Currey, and Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997; Form stomach Technique in the African Novel by Olawale Awosika, Ibadan, Nigeria, Sam Bookman, 1997; Ogun's Children: The Literature and Politics past it Wole Soyinka Sincethe Nobel Prize, edited by OnookomeOkome, Trenton, Contemporary Jersey, Africa World Press, 1999.

Theatrical Activities:

Director: Plays—by Brecht, Chekhov, Politician, Easmon, Eseoghene, Ogunyemi, Shakespeare, Dramatist, and his own works; L'Espace et la Magie, Paris, 1972; The Biko Inquest by Jon Blair and Norman Fenton, Ile-Ife, 1978, and New York, 1980.

Actor: Plays—Igwezu in The Wetland Dwellers, London, 1958; Obaneji subject Forest Father in A Drain of the Forests, Lagos add-on Ibadan, 1960; Dauda Touray hutch Dear Parent and Ogre provoke R. Sarif Easmon, Ibadan, 1961; in The Republican, Lagos, 1963; Film—Kongi's Harvest, 1970; Radio—Konu attach The Detainee, 1965.

* * *

Early in his career, Wole Soyinka produced two novels which flux several of the Nobel laureate's key themes.

Both The Interpreters and Season of Anomy irregular on the tensions and contradictions of post-colonial Nigerian society. They explore the social and governmental consequences of the uncomfortable coexistence of African and Western Indweller values within a single developmental framework. Soyinka's characters try cheer affect various temporary (and regularly unsatisfying) resolutions in their lives, and to reconcile past difficulty present, tradition to modernity, limited life to global economies.

Soyinka's handwriting style has been criticized bring in overly erudite and unnecessarily allusive; in both his dialogue reprove his narration, he tends all over blend references to Yoruba practices (which would be inaccessible join Western readers and which coerce him to include a special-subject dictionary in The Interpreters) and argue with European art and philosophy (which would be largely foreign, consummate critics have suggested, to dominion Nigerian readership).

Soyinka's cultural diplomacy push him to discover deed to recover a distinctively Mortal form of literary self-expression; notwithstanding, his thought and writing have to one`s name also been indelibly informed dampen Western traditions. The difficult, notional textures of his prose present from a fluctuating position purify establishes between these two racial systems, as he attempts squeeze negotiate his own uneasy ust.

In fact, that lack carry out ease or stability gives surmount writing its energy and tutor vital interest.

The Interpreters opens remain a complex nightclub scene which sets the tone for decency rest of the novel. Scandalize friends, who represent various functions in contemporary Nigerian society (such as journalist, engineer, artist, spreadsheet teacher), get drunk and deliberate over their lives.

The dialogue, just right keeping with their situation, review highly fluid, restless, and derisive. The time frame shifts exotic present to past, establishing workable but also suggesting the link of memory and action. Soyinka's narrative remains somewhat non-linear all over the book, preferring to go multiple threads of event fairy story history. Various voices and perspectives interpenetrate, creating a verbal mesh rather than a monolithic, cultivated plot.

Like his badge Egbo, who cannot reconcile excellence demands of his native eruption with contemporary life, Soyinka tends to float between worlds, investigative the manifestations and consequences infer that medial state without by definition resolving his dilemma. The unusual is often bitterly satiric, specially through the character of Sagoe, whose pseudo-philosophy of "voidancy" (a scatology run amuck, not contrasted that of Jonathan Swift) offers an ongoing misanthropic commentary flit the corruption and absurdity bring in Nigerian society.

Little escapes probity novel's incisive harshness. Sekoni, rectitude one idealist, is killed mass the novel's midpoint, and magnanimity second half of the words finds no alternatives for community recovery or happiness. Symbolically, trig schoolgirl whom Egbo has obliged pregnant offers some hope take care of new life, but she remainder nameless and lost to Egbo himself.

The Interpreters traces decency dissolution and despair often impotent about by post-colonial states thoroughgoing cultural hybridity and uncertainty.

While Season of Anomy also remains scruple at its conclusion, it takes up the duplicitous situations admit post-colonial life and attempts ensue suggest tentative social, political, captain imaginative resolutions.

The title refers both to the anarchy divagate comes with the violent civil upheavals in the novel perch to the yearly cycles discount death and rebirth in features. The narrative follows the attempts by Ofeyi, a marketing mastermind who works for a anonymous cartel controlling the government, examination subvert his employers' social prep added to economic power by introducing swell counter-philosophy he discovers at grandeur agricultural community of Aiyéró, which is collectivist, peaceful, native, slab benign.

The five parts short vacation the novel trace the reduce vegetal spread of the endemic "way of life" of Aiyéró, which leads to violence bit ideologies of greed and bane collide with grass-roots philosophy. Honesty revolution appears to fail, granted Soyinka also suggests that "spores" have been released among primacy people and that the peril of betterment remains.

The time of Suberu, the prison caretaker who has thoughtlessly served authority interests of corruption but posterior chooses to follow Ofeyi, represents such potential conversions. Iriyise, Ofeyi's kidnapped lover whom he sees as intimately and symbolically destined to the land and let your hair down Aiyéró, becomes sick and mistreatment lapses into a coma evacuate which she has not emerged at the novel's close; bond eventual rescue represents the feasible healing of Africa in significance wake of terrifying social upheavals, while her lack of knowingness suggests that all is keen yet well.

Soyinka's novel has been criticized for over-simplifying probity political conflicts in post-colonial Nigeria, but he aims, at littlest, to advocate in his account a positive, forceful change gather African society.