Wole Soyinka

As a dramatist, poet, novelist, essayist, political activist and professor, Wole Soyinka is perhaps Africa’s most brilliant cultural ambassador and critic, and a notable commentator on world affairs. He was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1986) and two of his works, the play Death and the King’s Horseman and Aké: Years of Childhood, an autobiographical account of his childhood, have recently been listed in Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. He holds an honorary doctorate from Yale University, and has served as visiting professor at Yale and Cambridge universities. He has spent long periods in political exile, but is now living again in Nigeria.