Dr olaokun soyinka biography books

Away from the public eye, what is WS really like?

He is probably quieter and more private and solitary than people might expect. He needs his space. Once you think about the nature of his work, the need to read, absorb, analyze, write and talk on so many topics, then it becomes obvious that he would need a lot of thinking time. His pastimes reflect this. Going hunting alone or playing chess against the computer.

When he is ready to socialize, for example at mealtimes, he is more like the public persona; humorous, entertaining, informative. Conversation always flows. He is a magnet for all sorts of informants so there are plenty of anecdotes to share.

Your father has a reputation as an upright man. How much of a disciplinarian is he?

He is not what I would describe as a strict disciplinarian. As kids there were certain things you didn’t do, you knew the boundaries not to cross. But he was not a parent with lots of rules  to control all aspects of your behavior.

When he is really angry what does he do?

Well for sure you can see it in his face. Apart from raising his voice I don’t think he is different from most people.  I have never seen him raise his hand to anyone.

Growing up, was there a time you incurred his ire? What did he do then?

There was a time we had a party at the house at the University of Ibadan. As a treat, I was allowed to be one of the waiters. I was about ten years old I think. I wore my matching short-sleeved shirt and shorts and felt very smart. I was proud of being given the responsibility. Many of the glasses I cleared had some drink in them and out of curiosity I tasted a few of them. I don’t know what I drank or how much, but it was noted that I had disappeared. I was eventually found asleep behind one of the drums of drink. I got a stiff telling off the next day but he didn’t ban me from drinking wine! I hasten to add I did not take up habitual drinking at

Nigerian playwright, poet and novelist

"Soyinka" redirects here. For the surname, see Soyinka (surname).

Wole Soyinka (13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet, who wrote prolifically. He wrote three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collection, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He wrote two translated works and many articles and short stories for many newspapers and periodicals. He is widely regarded as one of Africa's greatest writers and one of the world's most important dramatists. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence".

Born into an Anglican Yoruba family in Aké, Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education at Government College, Ibadan and proceeded to the University College Ibadan. During his education, he founded the Pyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at the University of Leeds. During that period, he was the editor of the university's magazine, The Eagle, before becoming a full-time author in the 1950s. At UK he started writing short stories and making records for the BBC lecture. He wrote many plays which were performed in radios and theatres in Nigeria and UK especially the Royal Court Theatre. In 1958 he married a British woman whom he had met in Leeds. In 1963, after the divorce of the first wife, he married a Nigerian librarian, and subsequently, Folake Doherty in 1989.

Many of Soyinka's novels and plays are set in Nigeria. He also wrote many satirical pieces, which he used to appeal to a wide public and sold in large numbers. He is also a poet; he did well in the writing poems and poetry collections. He achieved

By Tope Templer Olaiya
Grandpa Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka is many things but the Lion of the literary forest, terror to unruly leaders, and die-hard bringer of surprises to his grandchildren. To his children, he has for a large chunk of his adult life being the unorthodox father. “Yes, I play father role to my children but I am not an orthodox father, and all my children got it early that I am an absentee father,” he once said.
His depiction of the conventional family man is surprisingly not complex: “An orthodox family man is one who gets up in the morning, see members of his family before going to work, know exactly what they are doing and they know when you are going to sleep. At least once a day, they have meal together. He knows where he would be tomorrow, on the average. Me, sometimes I am not sure where I would be tomorrow. Something I am involved in may demand my attention sooner than I expect.”

While Soyinka might not a father in the true sense that fathers are like changing diapers, cuddling a baby, dancing for a crying tot and singing one of those lullabies to comfort the whining baby to sleep or perhaps place the child on his bosom, he has had to shed his iron cast and played Grandpa Soyinka in the orthodox way, in spite of the inadequacies of time catching up with crunching schedules across the world.

Not once has he confessed to being more comfortable seeing children once in a while and you can breathe easy with his raison d’être. “Children for me lead their own lives. Even when they are in the house, let them stay on their own and I stay on my own. But the important thing is for them to know that you are there for them, even if you are on the other side of the world. That’s what matters.”

He does not regret the path he has chosen in life: “I always tell my family, ‘you have no choice. You didn’t ask to be my relation. I didn’t ask to be a member of your family.’ They ca

Q: For a long while, the working title of this book was Beyond The Word. Why did you change it to You Must Set Forth At Dawn?
A: Three editors went through the manuscript in America.

One of them was very struck by that line from one of my poems about my relationship with the road. She went through other titles but she said, “reading this whole thing, I have a feeling that the theme of the road and other voyages in both literal and metaphoric sense are so strong.’’ She said I should consider it. Well, it is a more lyrical title than Beyond The Word, which is a very succinct and very direct title, considering that I am a writer. There were two minds about it. So I put it to the vote. I contacted some of my colleagues here and outside. The majority vote was about six to four. And since, unlike some other people, my sense of democracy is quite genuine, I decided to go with the democratic flow.

Q: Can you recall the circumstances in which you wrote the book?

Let me say first of all that this is one of the most difficult literary efforts of my career. In fact, I aborted it about twice, three times. I just said, look, I don’t want to write this: I am not in the mood for it, I have more cognitive things to do, why should one indulge in an act of recollection? As you might well remember, I have always said that one should not write about one’s life after the age of innocence, which I put at eleven. In fact, one of my editors said, &ldq