The 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka (born 1934) "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence."[1] He is the first African recipient of the prize.[2][3]
 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature | |
|---|---|
| Wole Soyinka | |
 "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence." | |
| Date |
|
| Location | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Presented by | Swedish Academy |
| First awarded | 1901 |
| Website | Official website |
Laureate
editWole Soyinka is most well known for his playwriting with The Lion and the Jewel (1959), A Dance of the Forests (1960), Kongi's Harvest (1964), and Death and the King's Horseman (1975) as among his best works. Along with his writing career, he has worked as an actor and in theaters in Nigeria and Great Britain. Poems, novels, and essays are also included in his body of work, among them The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1972), and Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981). Although Soyinka writes in English, the Yoruba culture of his home Nigeria and its myths, stories, and rituals are deeply ingrained in his writings. His writing also draws from Western traditions, from modernist play to classical tragedies.[4]
Reactions
editWhen Soyinka was awarded, he became the first African laureate.[2] He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved". He also notes that "it is the first Nobel Prize awarded to an African writer or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire."[5] Lars Olof Franzén, cultural editor of Dagens Nyheter, said that it would have been difficult for the Swedish Academy to give the first African prize to a white South African author such as Nadine Gordimer (awarded in 1991) or André Brink, who had frequently been mentioned as likely contenders for the prize. Soyinka himself expressed the belief that the award had not been bestowed on him but on Africa itself: "I don't for a minute consider that the prize is just for me," he said. "It's for what I represent. I'm a part of the whole literary tradition of Africa."[6]
Nobel lecture
editHis Nobel lecture, This Past Must Address Its Present, was devoted to the South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the National South African government.[7]
References
edit- ^ "Nobel Prize in Literature 1986". nobelprize.org.
- ^ a b Wole Soyinka britannica.com
- ^ James M. Markham (17 October 1986). "Soyinka, Nigerian Dramatist, Wins Nobel Literature Prize". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2021.
- ^ Wole Soyinka – Facts nobelprize.org
- ^ Dasenbrock, Reed Way (January 1987). "Wole Soyinka's Nobel Prize". World Literature Today. 61 (1): 4–9. JSTOR 40142439.
- ^ Markham, James M. (17 October 1986). "Soyinka, Nigerian Dramatist, Wins Nobel Literature Prize". New York Times.
- ^ 1986 Nobel Lecture – Wole Soyinka nobelprize.org
External links
edit- Award Ceremony speech nobelprize.org
- 1986 Press release nobelprize.org