Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet, and playwright. Some consider him Africa’s most distinguished playwright, as he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African so honored.Soyinka has played an active role in Nigeria’s political history. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War he was arrested by the Federal Government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for his attempts at brokering a peace between the warring parties. While in prison he wrote poetry which was published in a collection titled Poems from Prison. He was released 22 months later after international attention was drawn to his imprisonment. His experiences in prison are recounted in his book The Man Died: Prison Notes.
He has been an outspoken critic of many Nigerian administrations and of political tyrannies worldwide, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. A great deal of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the color of the foot that wears it."
Soyinka has also written four other memoirs about his life which can more completely update his biography for those interested:
- Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay (1989), an account of his father's life in Nigeria and a prequel of sorts to Aké;
- Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (1994), which continues Soyinka's childhood story after Aké until about the time of his imprisonment;
- the aforementioned The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) accounts for those two harrowing years; and
- You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006), a recently published text that details Soyinka's life and experiences from his young manhood to the present.
