The literati and arts enthusiasts across the world will today roll out the drums in celebration of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who turns 80. He was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State on July 13, 1934.
Series of stage plays, conferences and discourses in celebration of the life of the distinguished bard holding globally are expected to reach their crescendo today. In Nigeria, among other events, the living literary legend is being celebrated via a project tagged WS Open Door Series, an international cultural exchange.
Earlier, all for the incipient ‘octogenarian status’ of the revered Nobel laureate, there were exhibition tours to Abeokuta, Osogbo, Port Harcourt, Lagos and Jos. Some of Soyinka’s plays such as Alapata Apata, Death and the King’s Horseman, Madmen and Specialist, Dance of the Forest, including Lanke Omu and Oba Koso, are being performed to the delectation of theatre doters.
Besides, 80 poets drawn from Nigeria, US and Jamaica have exhibited their ingenious impulses at an amassment tagged ‘The Soyinka Impulse and Education-Path to Freedom and the Future’ held in Lagos. This is in integration to the deluge of encomiums that perpetuate to pour in for Soyinka from his admirers.
Soyinka, whose oeuvre assiduously interrogates core human issues, has perpetually expressed his disdain for tyranny. The playwright has perpetuated to verbalize against many of the quandaries plaguing the country and proffer solutions as congruous. Lately, he renewed his condemnation for the raging insurgency confronting the country including other mind-boggling challenges.
Though the playwright, essayist, poet, activist and upbraider has felt the jackboots of the military for daring to query its excesses, he remained undaunted in pursuing a cause he believes in.
From The Man Died (1971) which documents his 22-month incarceration, The Swamp Dwellers, A play of Giants, Kongi’s Harvest, Requiem for a Futurologist, Season of Anomy, A Dance of the Forest to The Lion and the Jewel among numerous others, Soyinka unveils his literary preoccupation and exceptional style.
President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday congratulated Soyinka for reaching a ‘landmark age.’
In a verbalization by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Dr. Reuben Abati, Jonathan verbalized, “As Soyinka’s enters the elite club of the world’s highly revered octogenarians and very special people who have made very consequential and indelible contributions to their countries and humanity, the President joins Prof. Soyinka, his family, friends, associates, readers and fans across the world in giving thanks to God Almighty for his glorious life of accommodation to the arts, his nation and mankind at immensely colossal.”
The verbal expression denoted that Jonathan lauded the playwright’s perennial dedication and commitment to promoting democracy and good governance in Nigeria.
“On the jubilant occasion of the Nobel laureate’s 80th day of inchoation, President Jonathan applauds his perennial dedication and indefatigable commitment to utilizing his acclaimed genius and aptitudes, not only in the accommodation of the arts, but withal for the promotion of democracy, good governance and veneration for human rights in Nigeria, Africa and beyond. The President assures Prof. Soyinka that he will always be celebrated and venerated by his proud countrymen, women and children for his famed literary works and for his exemplary vocation, which has inspired others to take up a life of altruistic accommodation to humanity.
The President prays that God Almighty will grant him many more years of good health and vigor to perpetuate with his devotion to making the world a more preponderant place for his people and all who live in it,” the verbal expression integrated.
As continuation of the celebration of Soyinka’s graceful procurement of 80, a leading African Literature Scholar and Provost, College of Humanities at the Kwara State University, Prof. Abiola Irele is expected to verbalize on the theme, ‘Wole Soyinka and the Moral Burden of Literature’ at the 6th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series in Lagos today.
The forum, which hopes to draw attention to the diverse ways literature mirrors and impacts on the society, will withal dwell on the edifications from the life and works of Soyinka.
Scholars and poets such as Prof. Ropo Sekoni, Odia Ofeimun and Dan Izevbaye are expected to withal participate in the discourse.
