Wole Soyinka is a poet and playwright based in Nigeria. He was born in Abeokuta, nearby Ibadan in western Nigeria. He attended Government College in Ibadan and then continued on at the University of Leeds. He spent six years in England and from 1958 to 1959 was a dramaturgist for the Royal Court Theatre. In 1960, he received a Rockefeller bursary. He then returned to Nigeria to learn more about African drama. He taught drama, literature, and comparative literature at various universities throughout Nigeria and in 1960, started the theater group The 1960’s Masks. In 1964, he began the Orisun Theater Company. Though inspired by other dramatists, he focuses heavily on African theater and its combination of dance, music, and action. Much of his writing is based on the mythology of his tribe, the Yoruba, and puts Ogun, the god of war, at the center. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he wrote various kinds of plays and novels. Some of his plays include The Lion and the Jewel, The Trial of Brother Jero, and The Metamorphasis of Jero, all three of which are comedies. His more serious work includes The Strong Breed, The Road, and Death and the King’s Horsemen. His novels are The Interrpreturs, and Season of Anatomy. His autobiographical works are The Man Died: Prison Notes, and Ake. Myth, Literature and the African World is a collection of his essays and other works.
Information from the Nobel Prize website.
