Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, was on Monday, August 24, described as one of the finest poetical playwrights to have written in English.
The Nobel Prize said this in a statement on its verified X handle while celebrating some previous winners of the world acclaimed Swedish award.
Professor Soyinka was announced as the winner of the over $1 million Nobel Prize for Literature on October 1986, making him the first African to win the prize.
Since then, he has travelled worldwide to deliver lectures at events and teach in some famous universities all over the world.
He received the prize on December 10, 1986, from King Carl Gustav of Sweden at a ceremony held at the Stockholm Concert Hall, which incidentally was the day marking the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel.
On December 8, 1986, two days before receiving the prize, Soyinka delivered the Nobel Lecture entitled: “This Past Must Address Its Present” at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.
Soyinka used the lecture mainly to condemn apartheid in South Africa. He argued that the world could not celebrate literature and culture while a system of racial oppression existed. He called apartheid “the most monstrous form of racism in our time” and urged global action.
He also said in the lecture that writers were not just entertainers. They have a duty to confront injustice, tyranny, and corruption. Literature must “address its present” – meaning it must engage with the problems of its time.
He also descended heavily on military dictatorships in Africa, censorship, and how colonial mentalities affected African nations. He warned against leaders who used culture as a mask for oppression.
For 45 minutes that the lecture lasted, he held the audience spellbound.
