Nobel Prize -Winning Nigerian Author and Activist Wole Soyinka to Visit Valley

Wole Soyinka, world-renowned Nigerian author and political activist, will be in residence at the Pioneer Valley's Five Colleges October 28-November 4. The 1986 Nobel laureate and Africa's foremost playwright will give two major addresses, a directing workshop, a reading, and a press conference, as well as meet with classes and small groups of faculty and students. He will be at Mount Holyoke November 1 and 4. (See CSJ calendars for a full schedule of events connected with Soyinka.)

>>> Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, one of the most significant figures in contemporary world literature, will participate in lectures, workshops, readings, and other events at the five colleges. See calendar section for details of all Soyinka activities.

Soyinka's significant artistic output has been matched by his unflagging commitment to political activism in Nigeria. In 1972, he published A Man Died, his prison memoirs based on two years imprisonment in solitary confinement for his efforts to bring peace during the Biafran Civil War. Currently, he is a vocal opponent of Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha, who only one year ago shocked the world by ordering the execution of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other political activists.

"Soyinka is the most notable person speaking out internationally concerning the atrocities in Nigeria and the lasting consequences of European imperialism throughout Africa," said assistant professor of theatre arts Awam Amkpa, who worked with Soyinka in Nigeria and has been instrumental in bringing the playwright here. "I feel my students shouldn't just hear about his theories and politics, but should hear directly from him."

Soyinka's most recent book, The Open Sore: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, offers a scathing critique of the current Nigerian dictatorship, the most brutal in its history. Featured on the cover of the August 11 New York Times Book Review, the book has enjoyed favorable critical attention.

Now in political exile from his homeland, Soyinka is renowned as an essayist, playwright, critic, novelist, autobiographer, and director. His work and life have been at the center of Nigeria's struggles in the nearly forty years since its independence. Of him, writer Nadine Gordimer has said, "The writer in Africa has to make art out of commitment. Soyinka is a prototype of that writer."

Soyinka's latest play, The Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope, was presented to critical acclaim at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October.