with Wole Soyinka on Aug 12, 2008
with Wole Soyinka on Apr 26, 2006
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”.
Source - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wole_soyinka
