Wole Soyinka Quote
Sadly, it is within the religious domain that the phenomenon of rhetorical hysteria takes its most devastating form. I am aware that, in some minds, this tends to be regarded as a delicate subject. Let me declare very simply that I do not share such a sentiment. There is nothing in the least delicate about the slaughter of innocents. We all subscribe to the lofty notions contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but, for some reason, become suddenly coy and selective when it comes to defending what is obviously the most elementary of these rights, which is the right to life. One of my all-time favourite lines comes from the black American poet Langston Hughes. It reads, simply, 'There is no lavender word for lynch'.
Sadly, it is within the religious domain that the phenomenon of rhetorical hysteria takes its most devastating form. I am aware that, in some minds, this tends to be regarded as a delicate subject. Let me declare very simply that I do not share such a sentiment. There is nothing in the least delicate about the slaughter of innocents. We all subscribe to the lofty notions contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but, for some reason, become suddenly coy and selective when it comes to defending what is obviously the most elementary of these rights, which is the right to life. One of my all-time favourite lines comes from the black American poet Langston Hughes. It reads, simply, 'There is no lavender word for lynch'.
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About Wole Soyinka
Born into an Anglican Yoruba family in Aké, Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education at Government College, Ibadan and proceeded to the University College Ibadan. During his education, he co-founded the Pyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at the University of Leeds. During that period, he was the editor of the university's magazine, The Eagle, before becoming a full-time author in the 1950s. In the UK, he started writing short stories and making records for the BBC Lecture series. He wrote many plays which were performed on radios and in theatres in Nigeria and the UK, especially the Royal Court Theatre. In 1958, he married a British woman whom he had met in Leeds. In 1963, after the divorce of his first wife, he married a Nigerian librarian and, subsequently, Folake Doherty in 1989.
Many of Soyinka's novels and plays are set in Nigeria. He has also written many satirical pieces, which he used to appeal to a wide public and sold in large numbers. He is also a poet; he has written poems and poetry collections. He achieved successes with his plays including The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Lion and the Jewel (1959), and The Invention, which was one of his early plays to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka wrote a number of other works, including The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1973), Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, and Harmattan Haze on an African Spring. In July 2024, Bola Tinubu renamed the National Arts Theatre after Soyinka during his 90th birthday.