Soyinka, Wole

About Wole Soyinka

Biography (Blogspot)

Biography (Nobel Prize)

Biography (Poetry Foundation)

 

Interviews

Ajibade, Kunle. “Interview: Why I Can’t Stop Challenging Injustice – Soyinka.” Premium Times, 7 Aug. 2019

Bentar, Max. “Interview: Wole Soyinka.” Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, 25 Jun. 2015

Jaggi, Maya. “The Voice of Conscience.” The Guardian, 28 May 2007

Singer, Ron. “Nigerian Futures: Interview with Wole Soyinka.” Open Democracy, 24 Aug. 2006

Jaffrey, Zia. "Wole Soyinka: 'This Regime Just Does Not Believe in Innocence'." The Progressive, 1997

Beier, Ulli. "Wole Soyinka on Yoruba Religion." Isokan Yoruba Magazine, vol. 3, no. 3, 1997

 

Reviews

Taft, Maggie. “Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions.” Booklist, vol. 116, no. 4, 2019

Adekoya, Segun. “Two Chains, One Choice: Soyinka and the Quest for Freedom from the Twin Plagues of Political and Religious Maladies in Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known.” Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 8, no. 5, 2015

Assensoh, A. B., and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh. “Celebrating Soyinka at 80.” New African, no. 409, 2014

Harlow, B. “Of Africa.” Choice, vol. 50, no. 8, 2013

O’Malley, J. P. “Wole Soyinka Telling It As It Is.” New African, no. 523, 2012

Karim, Aisha. “Crisis of Representation in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy.” Mediations, vol. 24, no. 2, 2009

Abbas, Fatin. “Dining With Devils.” Nation, vol. 282, no. 21, 2006

Irobi, Esiaba. “Barbs: A Study of Satire in the Plays of Wole Soyinka.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 36, no. 2, 2005

Newell, Stephanie. “Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics, and Postcolonialism.” Africa, vol. 74, no. 4, 2004

Johae, Antony. “Wole Soyinka’s ‘Gulliver’ Swift Transposed.” Comparative Literature, vol. 53, no. 1, 2001

Heger Boyle, Elizabeth. “Gesture Without Motion? Poetry and Politics in Africa. A Review Essay on The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness by Wole Soyinka.” Human Rights Review, vol. 2, no. 1, 2000

Wright, Derek. “Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to His Writing.” Research in African Literatures, no. 2, 1990

 

Criticism

Odebunmi, Akin, and K. K. Olaniyan. “Indexicality and Characterization in Wole Soyinka’s Ake.” Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa, Odebunmi et al. (eds.), 2016

Fioupou, Christiane. “Wole Soyinka’s ‘Armoury of Creativity’: Cultural Melange from Opera Wonyosi to Guerrilla Theatre.” Cultural Mélange in Aesthetic Practices, Greenall and Mitchell (eds.), 2015

Gibbs, James. “The Portrait of the Artist as a Younger Traveller: A Reader’s Response to Wole Soyinka’s You Must Set Forth at Dawn.” Engaging with Literature of Commitment, vol.1, Collier et al. (eds.), 2012

Adeyemi, Sola. "Interpreting the Interpreters: The Narratives of the Postcolony in Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters." African Literatures and Beyond: A Florilegium, David and Lindfors (eds.), 2013

Msiska, Mpalive–Hangson. "Cultural Studies, Power, and the Idea of the Hegemonic in Wole Soyinka's Works." African Literatures and Beyond: A Florilegium, David and Lindfors (eds.), 2013

Ajayi, Adewale. "Marginality, Liminal Existence, and the Human Condition in Wole Soyinka's The Road." The Image of the Road in Literature, Media, and Society II, Kaplan (ed.), 2012

Chew, Shirley. "Putting Freedom to the Test: Wole Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn." Engaging with Literature of Commitment, vol. 1, Collier et al. (eds.), 2012

Jeyifo, Biodun. Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics, and Postcolonialism, 2004

Lindfors, Bernth and Bala Kothandaraman (eds.). The Writer as Myth Maker: South Asian Perspectives on Wole Soyinka, 2004

Narasimhaiah, C. D. "Where Angels Fear to Tread: Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka as Critics of the African Scene." The Writer as Myth Maker: South Asian Perspectives on Wole Soyinka, Kothandaraman and Lindfors (eds.), 2004

Jeyifo, Biodun. Perspectives on Wole Soyinka: Freedom and Complexity, 2001

 

Works

Autobiography/Life Writing

You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006)

Isara: A Voyage around Essay (1990)

Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir 1946-65 (1989)

Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981)

The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972)

 

Novels

Season of Anomy (1972)

The Interpreters (1964)

 

Short Story Collections

Madame Etienne's Establishment (1960)

Egbe's Sworn Enemy (1960)

A Tale of Two (1958)

 

Poetry Collections

Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known (2002)

Early Poems (1997)

Mandela's Earth and other Poems (1988)

Ogun Abibiman (1976)

A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971)

A Big Airplane Crashed into The Earth (1969)

Idanre and other Poems (1967)

Telephone Conversation (1963)

 

Plays/ Scripts

Alapata Apata (2011)

King Baabu (2001)

The Beatification of Area Boy (1996)

From Zia with Love (1992)

Childe Internationale (1987)

A Play of Giants (1984)

Requiem for a Futurologist (1983)

Opera Wonyosi (1977)

Death and the King's Horseman (1975)

Jero's Metamorphosis (1973)

Camwood on the Leaves (1973)

The Bacchae of Euripides (1973)

Madmen and Specialists (1970)

The Road (1965)

Kongi's Harvest (1964)

Before the Blackout (1964)

The Strong Breed (1964)

My Father's Burden (1960)

A Dance of the Forests (1960)

The Lion and the Jewel (1959)

A Quality of Violence (1959)

The Swamp Dwellers (1958)

The Invention (1957)

Keffi's Birthday Treat (1954)

 

Essays/Articles/Non-Ficton/Short Stories

"The Danger of Naming Art Before it Has Been Made." Literary Hub, 23 Jan. 2020

Soyinka, Wole, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. “‘There’s One Humanity or There Isn’t’: A Conversation.” The New York Review of Books, vol. 66, no. 5, 2019

“I Am a Fundamentalist of Freedom.” Journal of the African Literature Association, vol. 11, no. 1, 2017

“From Chibok with Love.” Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 8, no. 5, 2015

“Remembering Ali Mazrui.” Transition, no. 117, 2015

“A Name Is More Than the Tyranny of Taste.” Black Camera, vol. 5, no. 1, 2013

“Twelve Canticles for the Zealot ….” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 79, no. 3, 2011

"Wole Soyinka on Obama's Choice." The Root, 14 Jul. 2009

“From Ghetto to Garrison: A Chronic Case of Orisunitis.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 30, no. 4, 1999

“To an Expanding World of Mind-Closure.” Diogenes, vol. 44, no. 176, 1996

"Ethics, Ideology and the Critic." Criticism and Ideology, Petersen (ed.), 1986

"This Past Must Adress Its Present." Nobelprize.org, 8 Dec. 1986

 

Audio and Audiovisual Material

Wole Soyinka and Chris Abani in Conversation. YouTube, 9 Oct. 2020

One-On-One with Prof. Wole Soyinka. YouTube, 4 Jun. 2020

Elif Shafak and Wole Soyinka in Conversation on Nationalism, Safe Spaces and Being Story Tellers. YouTube, 22 Nov. 2019

Wole Soyinka: ‘Islam Is not in Danger’'. YouTube, 12 Jul. 2014

Wole Soyinka Talks About His Work and the Relationship Between Politics and Culture. YouTube, 28 May 2014

Conversation with Wole Soyinka on His Work and Life. YouTube, 30 Jul. 2011

Wole Soyinka at the Launch of the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. YouTube, 18 Feb. 2010

Wole Soyinka: Living Legend on African Voices. CNN, 3 Aug. 2009

Wole Soyinka, 17 April 2006: Nigeria's Political Tumult. YouTube, 2009

Wole Soyinka Reads His Poem "Lost Poems" from Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known. Nobelprize.org, Apr. 2005

Wole Soyinka Interview. Nobelprize.org, 28 Apr. 2005

Conversations with History: Wole Soyinka, YouTube. Oct. 2002