The Full Story
CHRONOLOGY
1934 - Born Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka on 13 July in Ijebu Isara in Western Nigeria. His father Canon S.A. Soyinka was a school supervisor and Anglican minister and his mother Grace Eniola was the daughter of an Anglican minister and a "a trader."
1940-1952 - Attends primary school in Abeokuta.
1946-1951 - Attends secondary school at Government College, Ibadan.
1952-54 - University College, Ibadan, an institution affiliated with the University of London. Founds The Pyrates Confraternity (National Association of Seadogs).
1954-1957 - Attends University of Leeds (UK), where he comes under the influence of the brilliant
Shakespeare scholar G. Wilson Knight and the Marxist, Arnold Kettle.
August 1955: does recordings for the BBC lectures and short stories; 1957: wins the
annual oratory contest in his university. His topic: The Banality of Seasonal Gifts;
receives honors degree in English Literature.
1957 - Begins work for M. A. at Leeds but abandons graduate studies to work in theater; serves as Dramaturgist and play reader for Royal Court Theatre, London where he joins the group of young writers brought together by George Devine.
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1958 - September: Produces The Swamp Dwellers for the University of London Drama Festival.
Marries Barbara Dixon; their son, Olaokun, is born.
1959 - February: The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel produced in Ibadan;
November: Writes, produces, and acts in An Evening without Decor, a medley of his work, at the Royal Court Theatre, London; attacks racism and colonial repression in Africa in these and other works. Directs his play, The Invention, a satire on Racism in South Africa
for a one-night performance at the Royal Court.
1960- 1964 - Soyinka was co editor of Black Orpheus, an important literary journal.
1960- 1962 - Awarded a Rockefeller bursary /Rockefeller Research Fell.
Returns to Nigeria, aged 25 to study African Drama
March - The Trials of Brother Jero is produced in Ibadan along with its sequel, Jero's Metamorphosis.
May - Acts role of Yang Sun in The Good Woman of Setzuan at Ibadan
August - My Father's Burden is broadcast on Western Nigerian T.V.
October - Founds his own acting company, 1960 Masks.
Commissioned by the Nigerian government, he directs his play, A Dance of the Forests for the Independence Celebrations; also acts in it.
December - "Towards a True Theater" (essay); writes political satire on based on emergency in Western Nigeria.
The Tortoise, a play written specifically for radio, is broadcast, along with Camwood on the Leaves.
1961-1964 - Directs plays by other playwrights, Ibadan;
Writes and directs series of agit-prop sketches, The (new) Republican and Before the Blackout, attacking the political intrigues, corruption, and manipulation of the mass media in the country;
Founding member, Mbari Writers and Artists Club, Ibadan.
1962-1963 - Lecturer, Department of English, University of Ife
December - His essay Towards a True Theatre is published; writes political satire based on emergency in Western Nigeria.
1963 - Culture in Transition (film). His documentary film is produced; wins Commonwealth Prize for Literature.
Marries former Miss Laide Idowu; Moremi, their first daughter is born.
1964 - December - Founds, with others, the Drama Association of Nigeria
1964 - Founded the “Orisun Theatre Company”
1965 - The Interpreters (novel) published in London by Andre Deutsch;
April - Writes and directs Before the Deluge at Orisun Theatre, a 'playlet' previously recorded for the BBC in March, and recorded earlier in Nigeria by the 1960 Masks; directs Kongi's Harvest in Lagos.
September - records The Detainee for BBC in London.
Detained in Ibadan on charge of having held up a radio station at gunpoint;
The Road, premieres at the Commonwealth Arts Festival East Stratford, London.
November - The case of Inspector General v Wole Soyinka starts; he is subsequently discharged and acquitted, on a technicality.
1965-67 - Senior lecturer, Department of English, University of Lagos; criticizes personality cults and dictatorship in Africa.
1966 April - Revives Kongi's Harvest, Dakkar festival of Negro Arts.;
May - Translates Kako, published in Black Orpheus in Ibadan.
June - Trials of Brother Jero produced, Hampstead Theatre Club, London;
December - The Lion and the Jewel is produced at The Royal Court Theatre, London;
Shares John Whiting Award with Tom Stoppard.
1967 - Appointed Head of the Department of Theater Arts, University of Ibadan;
June - His essay, "The Writer in a Modern African State;" is published
August to October - During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease -fire. He follows this with a trip to the East to personally try to appeal to Ojukwu. For this he was arrested in accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969, without trial.
September - The Lion and the Jewel is produced Accra;
November - Trials of Brother Jero and The Strong Breed produced, Greenwich Mews Theatre, New York;
Idanre and Other Poems is published by Methuen, London..
1968 April - Kongi's Harvest, produced by Negro Ensemble Company, New York.
H is translation of D.O Fagunwa's Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irumole as The Forest of a Thousand Demons is published; wins Amnesty International's Prisoner of Conscience Award as well as the British Arts Council's John Whiting Award, which he shares with Tom Stoppard.
1969 February - The Road produced by Theatre Limited, Kampala, Uganda;
Poems from Prison is published by Rex Collings in London.
Following his release from prison, Soyinka goes into voluntary exile that lasts five years and soon after, enters a second period of intense creativity. Among its highlights is a book of poems, A Shuttle in the Crypt, a bitter reflection on his years of confinement.
1970 August - Completes and directs Madmen and Specialists with Ibadan University Theare Arts Company in New Haven, Connecticut (at Yale?); play tours to Harlem; directs plays by Pirandello and others;
A film version of Kongi's Harvest, with Soyinka as “Kongi”, is released.
1971 - A Shuttle in the Crypt (poems);
March - Revives Madmen and Specialists in Ibadan; acts Patrice Lumumba in John Littlewood's French production of Conor Cruise O'Brien's Murderous Angels, Paris;
Testifies before Kazeem Enquiry on violation of students' rights.
1972 - The Man Died, his prison notes, is published in London by Rex Collings; his collection of poems, A Shuttle in the Crypt, is also published, by Methuen in London.
July - extracts from A Dance of the Forests is performed in Paris;
Soyinka's father, S. A. Soyinka passes on.
1973 - University of Leeds awards him the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters; Season of Anomy, a novel is published; the first volume of his plays Collected Plays, Vol. 1 is published.
August - His adaptation of The Bacchae of Euripides, commissioned by the National Theatre of Britain is performed, to mixed reviews; appointed overseas fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and visiting professor of English, University of Sheffield; the second volume of his plays, Collected Plays Vol. II is published.
Becomes the editor of Transition, Black Africa's pre-eminent intellectual magazine;
Jero's Metamorphosis is published.
1973-74 - Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of English, University of Sheffield;
Collected Plays II.
1975 - Poems of Black Africa a collection edited by Soyinka is published in London and New York;
Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Tradition, his essay is published; attacks Idi Amin in Transition.
1976 - Ogun Abibiman (poems), as well as his seminal collection of essays, Myth, Literature, and the African World piublished; becomes visiting professor, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon;
Returns to Nigeria and becomes professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University.
September - Nairobi High School production of A Dance of the Forests;
October - French production of A Dance of the Forests, Dakar, Gambia;
December - Death and the King's Horseman, written while Soyinka was at ChurchillCollege, Cambridge, is produced under his direction at Ife.
Founds Africa's first road safety corps in Oyo state, and becomes chairman of its governing council. Works assiduously for the next six years, to curtail the accident rate especially along the notorious Ife-Ibadan road.
1977 - Participates actively in the government-sponsored Second World and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Nigeria.
1978 - His essay, Language as Boundary is published;
1978 - 81 - Opera Wonyosi, an adaptation of Brecht's Three Penny Opera and of Gay's The Beggar's Opera in which he found a framework for
his satirical bombardment of the numerous vices of oil-boom in Nigeria.
1979 - Directs Death and the King's Horseman in Chicago and Washington DC.
1980 - Directs and plays lead role in the South African play, Inquest on Steve Biko, which deals with the death in detention of the black consciousness leader. Subsequently, he takes the play and its Nigerian cast to New York with performances at Lincoln Center.
1981 - Ake: The Years Of Childhood (Autobiography) is published.
The Critic and Society:Barthes, Leftocracy, and Other Mythologies, an inaugural lecture is delivered in Ife.
Soyinka is appointed visiting professor at Yale University and awarded Honorary Doctor of Letters, by the same University.
"The Critic and Society: Barthes, Leftocracy, and Other Mythologies" (essay).
1982 - Blues for the Prodigal (film) released;
"Cross Currents: The 'New African' after Cultural Encounters" (essay).
1983 - December: Die Still, Rev. Dr. Godspeak, a radio play which metamorphoses as the stage play Requiem for a Futurologist is produced at Ife University;
The film, Blues for a Prodigal is released;
Shakespeare and the Living Dramatist a lecture delivered at the Shakespeare Society in Stratford-on-Avon in 1981 is published.
July - Unlimited Liability Company (a phonograph recording), critical of the excesses of Shagari's Government.
Directs Requiem for a Futurologist, a commissioned radio play which emerged as a stage play;
Eniola Soyinka, his mother, passes on.
1984 - His play, The Man Died is banned for the first time since its publication, by Nigerian courts. Nigerian publishers are restrained from selling it.
1984 - A Play of Giants (play)
A Play of Giants which tackles the failure of leadership especially in Africa is produced;His childhood autobiography, Aké, wins the Best Foreign Book Award in the United States of America, and would become his best-selling book.
The Road opens in Chicago and A Play of Giants premieres at the University of Yale.
1985 - Requiem for a Futorologist published;
"Climates of Art" the Herbert Read Memorial Lecture is delivered at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London.
1986 - A Play of Giants (play), Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University;
July - Awarded the Agip Prize for Literature, Awarded of Nigeria's second highest honor, Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR.;
September - Awarded Honorary Membership of American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; the third African to be so honoured.
October - Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first African to be so honored.
December - formally receives the Nobel in Stockholm; His Nobel lecture titled This PastMust Address it's Present, is dedicated to Nelson Mandela.
His essay, The External Encounter: Ambivalence in African Arts and Literature is published.
Becomes fellow, Society for the Humanities at Cornell University.
Elected president of the International Theatre Institute, Paris
Awarded Nigeria's second highest honour, Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR.
1987 - Six Plays; Childe Internationale one of his most frequently-performed sketches, is re-published.
1988 - Mandela's Earth and Other Poems and Art, Dialogue and Outrage, a collection of critical essays are published.
Appointed chairman, Federal Road Safety Commission.
1989 - " The Search, a short story is published.
Marries Miss Adefolake Doherty
1990 - Isara: A Voyage Around Essay - a celebration of the life of his schoolmaster father; is published.
Awarded Commander, Order of Merit, by the Italian Government, and the George Benson Medal of the Royal Society for Literature.
1991 - “Sisi Clara”, his workshop on theatre is organized in Lagos;
A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play) is broadcast in the BBC African Service;
The Credo of Being and Nothingness, (The First Rev. Olufosoye Annual Memorial Lecture in Religion), is delivered at the University of Ibadan on
25th January, 1991.
Resigns his chairmanship of the FRSC.
1992 - From Zia with Love, a play is performed at the International Theatre Festival in Italy. Here, he uses the metaphor of prison life to attack the military rulers of Nigeria.
1993 - Receives an honorary doctorate degree at Harvard University; vigorously protests the annulment in June of the general elections and begins a sustained campaign against the military rulers of Nigeria.
1994 - Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (A Memoir: 1946-1965) (autobiography); the third volume of his autobiography, is published.
November - Flees Nigeria; appointed UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the promotion of African culture, programmes and communication. Calls for the boycott of the government of Sani Abacha, at a press conference at UNESCO.
Becomes a Fellow of the Dubois Institute, Harvard University, USA.
1995 - The Beatification of Area Boy (a play) is published; the British premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds is sponsored by his alma mater, Leeds University.
Organizes the National Liberation Front of Nigeria (NALICON) for the fight to restore democracy.
1996- Publication of The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, a biting look at the Abacha regime, epitomized by the 1995 execution of fellow playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa. Fuses the various overseas democratic movements, including NALICON, into the United Democratic Front of Nigeria (UDFN).
1997 -
March - Charged with treason by military dictatorship of Sani Abacha.
Elected president of International Parliament of Writers (IPW), serving until 2000.
1998 - :Returns to Nigeria to a hero's welcome, following the death of Abacha and the announcement by his successors of a program for a return to democracy.
2001 - His latest play, King Baabu premieres in Nigeria, followed by performances in Europe andSouth Africa.
2002 - Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known ( collection of poems) is published.
Writes and directs Oedipus at Colonus, which is performed in Greece
Appointed to hold the first Memories of a Nigerian Childhood;
November: Flees Nigeria and lived in exile in USA
2005–2006 - Soyinka served on the Encyclopædia Britannica Editorial Board of Advisors.
2017 - December Wole Soyinka received the Europe Theater Prize’s “Special Prize.”
