Today marks the 90th birthday of Professor Emeritus Wole Soyinka — playwright, novelist, essayist, and academician. As the first person from Sub-Saharan Africa to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, he stands tall among men and women of letters who etched large footprints in the sands of time. His attaining the ripe age of 90 is, no doubt, a cause for celebration and keen introspection.
Little wonder, then, that many literary minds from Abuja to Lagos, and Port Harcourt to Rabat, Morocco, have organised events in his honour. Two of such events stood out: the one organised by the Royal Academy of Morocco, in collaboration with the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA), on July 11 in Rabat, which was attended by Soyinka in person, and the other was the naming, yesterday by President Bola Tinubu, of the National Theatre after Wole Soyinka. Born in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on July 13, 1934, Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka is the second of the seven children of Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, an Anglican priest and headmaster of St.
Peter’s Primary School, Abeokuta, and Grace, a trader cum women activist. After finishing primary school, Soyinka went to Abeokuta Grammar School, and Government College, Ibadan (1946-1952). He studied for two years at University College, Ibadan (1952–54), after which he proceeded to Leeds University in the United Kingdom, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree.
He began to write drama in his early years in the university, attracting positive respo.