CELEBRATING WOLE SOYINKA @80 Literary avatar Wole Soyinka is now a few hours shy of his 80th birthday. He will hit the coveted number morrow Sunday July 13. The world celebrates this humongous iconoclast, genius, Nobel laureate, writer, autobiographer, playwright, actor, thespian, dramatist, director, scholar-extraordinary, rare gem, intellectual, professor of professors, father of seven and serial husband of three as it marks its mondial finals on the other side. This literary monument and iconic figure has kept the entire world in awe of his dazzling intellect and prolificity as many describe him as a literary god and the greatest dramatist after William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe of England. His full name Oluwole (Akinwande) Soyinka was clipped in pattern after William Shakespeare. He and Ngugi wa Thiong’o of Kenya were born only a few months of each other in 1934 and only four years younger than Chinua Achebe of Nigeria who was earlier on November 16 1930. His writings which have been described by many as unnecessarily difficult and obscurantist have straddled both the literary and extra-literary planes. He has described his critics as intellectual imbeciles who are incapable of the intellectual rigours to penetrate the depth of his writings to access the inner recesses. He has written pretty well over one hundred books mostly plays and essays. He was the first man from the Black World to be crowned with the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986 by the Norwegian Nobel committee. He attended that award ceremony as a divorce’ as his second marriage to Laide his formal student in Ibadan was dissolved a year earlier in 1985. He had earlier been married to Barbara Skeath whom he had met in Leeds in 1957. Wole Soyinka was educated in University College Ibadan and Leeds one of the Redbrick universities in the United Kingdom. He distinguished himself as a student in Leeds where he would later undertake his postgraduate studies. He had last year at an International Cultural Exchange Programme marking his 79th birthday held in Abeokuta on July14 described the rumour that he had graduated from University College, Ibadan with a Third Class as satanic saying he had graduated magna cum laude (second class upper division) before proceeding to Leeds. Professor Soyinka taught in the University of Ibadan and Ife before resigning from active varsity teaching in the 80’s. He has been a visiting professor of Dramatic Literature to many universities in the US including Nevada State University Las Vegas and Harvard. His current wife Folake, his former student in Ife fondly describes him as a visiting husband not a visiting professor. Soyinka’s us of English remains mythical. The Swedish Academy had described him in 1986 as ‘an author who is well versed in the European literary tradition and can be avante-gardistically sophisticated in his novels and poems’. He was described as a master of language who uses English to the envy of the natives. He has remained an active writer for over eight decades later only recently publishing another memoir ‘You Must Set Forth at Dawn’. Great scholars are converging on the University of Lagos to celebrate this great man at a conference tagged ‘ The Soyinka Impulse, Art, Humanity, Transitions and Permanence: Calibrating Soyinka @80’. Notable scholars like Biodun Jeyifo of Harvard, Niyi Osundare, Femi Osofisan, Isidore Diala, Dr James Gibbs from UK, Anjali Gera Roy from India and Prof Zodwa Motsa of South Africa will be in attendance. As a student of English in the University we dreaded and hallowed the name Soyinka. We read some of his plays as set texts which we greatly relished. I join the rest of the Literary World to celebrate this literary monument and icon, King Kongi as he joins the octogenarian club @ 80. Eighty hearty cheers to you Kongi and many more eventful returns!
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 09:02:30 +0000
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