Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, essayist and pro-democracy activist. In 1986 he became the first African winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Quotes

 * I said: "A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces". In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: "I am a tiger".  When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
 * Janheinz Jahn (trans. Oliver Coburn and Ursula Lehrburger) A History of Neo-African Literature (London: Faber, 1968) pp. 265-6.
 * Explaining, in Berlin in 1964, a criticism of the concept of négritude he had made at a conference in Kampala in 1962.


 * The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.
 * The Man Died (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) p. 13.


 * There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
 * Death and the King's Horseman (1975); cited from Six Plays (London: Methuen, 1984) p. 189.


 * [T]he PDP, on whose platform he stands, represents the most harrowing of this nation’s nightmares over and beyond even the horrors of the Abacha regime. If he wishes to be considered on his own merit, now is time for him, as well as others similarly enmeshed, to exercise the moral courage that goes with his repudiation of that party, a dissociation from its past, and a pledge to reverse its menacing future. We shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and then have him present his credentials along those of other candidates engaged in forging a credible opposition alliance.
 * Sahara Reporters


 * "Come January 20, 2017; watch my WOLEXIT"


 * England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there....We should assemble all those who are pure and cannot abide other faiths, put them all in rockets, and fire them into space.....A virus has attacked the world of sense and sensibility, and it has spread to Nigeria....The assumption of power over life and death then passed to every single inconsequential Muslim in the world-as if someone had given them a new stature...Al Qaeda is the descendent of this phenomenon. The proselytization of Islam became vigorous after this. People went to Saudi Arabia. Madrassas were established everywhere.
 * Wole Soyinka: Duncan Gardham - Mutallab: Again Soyinka Blames UK For Breeding Terrorists - TheWill, February 2, 2010 James Meikle - England is 'cesspit' breeding Islamists, says Soyinka - The Guardian, February 2, 2010
 * The greatest threat to freedom is the absencee of criticism.
 * The strong man syndrome


 * the contemporary novel . . . I've read one or two: Rushdie, I've enjoyed, again, exceptionally, Marquez, I love his works: that's another exception. Bessie Head: I found her novels very, very gripping, fascinating, challenging, really intellectually intriguing. Then that black American woman writer, Toni Morrison, the author of Sula, Song of Solomon: she's a fascinating writer. Umberto Eco . . . But generally I don't read novels.
 * in Talking with African Writers by Jane Wilkinson (1992)

The Lion and the Jewel (1959)

 * Sidi feels empowered by seeing her beauty for the first time in the magazine prints. She recognizes that her beauty is a commodity, allowing her agency to make a future for herself. This is a novel idea: choosing one's own future is reserved for men.


 * It is five full months since last / I took a wife


 * The greedy dog! Insatiate camel of a foolish, doting race.

The Man Died (1972)

 * The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny
 * The Man Died (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) p. 13.


 * Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress truth.
 * Soyinka reflects on the power of literature and writing against authoritarian regimes


 * Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away
 * This quote illustrates the inevitable nature of truth


 * For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.
 * Soyinka emphasizes the fundamental importance of justice in society​


 * The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism
 * This quote highlights the crucial role of criticism in maintaining freedom


 * I have always held the view that when you have that situation, you must refuse to be part of it
 * This quote speaks to the importance of personal integrity and resistance


 * A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces
 * Soyinka uses this analogy to convey the essence of true power and action​.

Death and the King's Horseman (1975)

 * This market is my roost. When I come among the women I am a chicken with a hundred mothers.
 * Elesin explains why he must go to the marketplace before he travels on to the next world as part of the ritual. Page 10


 * When they get this way there is nothing you can do. It's simply hammering against a brick wall.
 * Elesin Pilkings offers several ignorant, callous, and patronizing comments about the Nigerians. Page 25


 * You know this business has to be stopped, Simon. And you are the only man who can do it.
 * Elesin Jane's comment here is telling, for it demonstrates the mantle of authority and power Europeans took upon themselves to order the affairs of their colonial subjects, most of the time without any permission or acceptance. Page 31


 * Is there now a streak of light at the end of the passage, a light I dare not look upon?
 * In the second part of the ritual, following Elesin's consummation of his new marriage, the praise-singer resumes his responsibility of the facilitator of the ritual.


 * Then I slowly realised that your greatest art is the art of survival. But at least have the humility to let others survive in their own way.
 * Olunde reveals his perspicacity and wisdom, gleaned from living in both England and Nigeria


 * Because he could not bear to let honour fly out of doors, he stopped it with his life. The son has proved the father Elesin, and there is nothing left in your mouth to gnash but infant gums.
 * Olunde takes on his father's role as the king's horseman and sacrifices himself.

Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981)

 * Things do not always happen as one plans. There are many disappointments in life. There is always the unexpected. You plan carefully, you decide on one step after another, and then...well, that is life. We are not God. So you see, one cannot afford to be weighed down by the unexpected. You will find that only determination will bring one through, sheer determination. And faith in God. Don't ever neglect your prayers....
 * 


 * Yes, you know damned well what you should have done if you sincerely desired their surrender. You could have dropped it [the atom bomb] on one of their mountains, even in the sea, anywhere they could see what would happen if they persisted in the war, but you chose instead to drop it on peopled cities. I know you, the white mentality: Japanese, Chinese, Africans, we are all subhuman. You would drop an atom bomb on Abeokuta or any of your colonies if it suited you
 * 


 * Wild Christian shushed him, but I saw no difference in both their attitudes. I was overwhelmed by only one fact- there was neither justice nor logic in the world of grown-ups
 * 


 * It is time to commence the mental shifts for admittance to yet another irrational world of adults and their discipline
 * 


 * Change was impossible to predict. A tempo, a mood would have settled over the house, over guests, relations, casual visitors, poor relations, 'cousins,' strays – all recognized within a tangible pattern of feeling – and then it would happen!
 * This quote captures the unpredictability of change in his childhood environment

A Play of Giants (1986)

 * Man is a bird without wings and a tree without roots.


 * The ground that man walks on, has it not always been there?


 * We are the giants who bestride the world like a colossus, while others are mere mortals.


 * Power is transient, but the deeds of those who wield it can leave an indelible mark on history.


 * Ideas, like everything else, can be corrupted. Power is like that: it pollutes everything it touches.


 * We must remember that the only true giants are those who walk with the people, not over them.

Quotes about Soyinka

 * My themed reading for both flights was Wole Soyinka, anything I had not yet read by the Nigerian novelist, memoirist, poet, and playwright. Because New York City was our final destination, I lingered over a poem of his titled "New York, U.S.A," which had been published more than a decade earlier. "Control was wrested from your pilot's hands,/And yours, mid-Atlantic, hapless voyager./Deafened the engine's last descent/To all but disordered echoes of your feet."
 * Edwidge Danticat Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (2010)


 * I like a writer like Ngugi, who lashes out, because he knows what is good and bad in writing. And I think this is true of Wole Soyinka, too... I admire Soyinka because I think he's continuous, much more continuous, as a writer…Wole Soyinka deserves the Nobel Prize.
 * Buchi Emecheta In Interviews with Writers of the Post-Colonial World edited by Feroza Jussawalla and Reed Way Dasenbrock (1992)


 * What I sensed in Soyinka is that, for the most part, as a middle-aged man he is able to look back on his childhood and still see his early life with that fresh eye.
 * 1982 interview in ''Conversations with Nadine Gordimer edited by Nancy Topping Bazin and Marilyn Dallman Seymour (1990)


 * Now, the most eloquent irreligious individual voice in Nigeria is our first Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. Soyinka is an eminent literary scholar. He has consistently argued for tolerance and respect for the humanity of all in the face of religious intolerance and extremism. Soyinka has not minced words in condemning the unconscionable religious gladiators in the region that have often turned the country into a theatre of absurdity and holy wars. He has been consistent in his condemnation of the jihadists and crusaders who often orchestrate religious bloodletting in their quest to implement Sharia law or to further some self-styled divine mandate. While I cannot say for sure how impactful his rational appeals are on policies and programs, Soyinka’s statements are sources of hope and light at times of darkness and despair. I can say for certain that on occasions when religious extremists push the nation to the brink. When religion blinds and people are unable to see or think clearly, when fear and fanaticism loom very large, Soyinka is a voice of rational sanity, thoughtful courage, and moderation.
 * Leo Igwe, as quoted in An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (June 23, 2017), Medium.


 * Chinua Achebe was a real education for me, a real education. And certainly the plays of Soyinka and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born of Ayi Kwei Armah-those things were at that time real, and they're the kinds of books that one can re-read with enormous discoveries subsequently.
 * 1986 interview in Conversations with Toni Morrison edited by Danille K. Taylor-Guthrie (1994)


 * He is remembered in Nigeria with awe, both for a political boldness that landed him in prison and for a commanding intellect that is manifest in every genre he tackles.
 * John Updike Hugging the Shore (New York: Knopf, 1983) pp. 683-4.