The first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1986), Wole Soyinka has established himself as one of the most compelling literary forces on the continent. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1934, he is often regarded as a universal man: poet, playwright, novelist, critic, lecturer, teacher, actor, translator, politician, and publisher. Soyinka's writing "blends African with European cultural traditions, the high seriousness of modernist elite literature, and the topicality of African popular theater." His early poetry, which can be found in one of the first issues of BlackOrpheus and in A Shuttle in the Crypt (1971), resulted from his imprisonment during the Nigerian Civil War. His powerful prison diary,The Man Died (1972) was published after his release.

Soyinka is actively committed to social justice and he has been an outspoken, daring public figure deeply engaged in the main political issues of his country and Africa, and he has become a symbol for humane values throughout the continent. Soyinka's hallmark is his dramatic work: "His plays are shaped by myth and imagery and the narratives move back and forth in time. The events are powerful, the language filled with puns and witty wordplay, references, and allusions. Soyinka has an excellent sense of dramatic rhythm and visual theater." See Kongi's Harvest, ADance of the Forest, The Road, and Death and the King's Horseman.(PM)

A Dance of the Forest. 1963. London: Oxford University Press.
The Road. 1965. London: Oxford University Press.
Kongi's Harvest. 1967. London: Oxford University Press.
The Man Died. 1972. New York: Harper & Row.
A Shuttle in the Crypt. 1972. London: R. Collings.
Death and the King's Horseman. 1975. New York: Norton.