The Soyinka effect

Dzukogi is the author of several books including Sex is Beautiful among others Sefi Atta: Soyinka’s poem helped me deal with racism I read Professor Soyinka’s poem Telephone Conversation as a student at Queen’s College and I was surprised he had experienced racism as a student in England. I’d only ever visited England as a […]

Dzukogi is the author of several books including Sex is Beautiful among others

Sefi Atta: Soyinka’s poem helped me deal with racism

I read Professor Soyinka’s poem Telephone Conversation as a student at Queen’s College and I was surprised he had experienced racism as a student in England. I’d only ever visited England as a tourist and stayed in hotels. I’d never even heard my parents talk about racism in England. I suppose they were being protective, and like Soyinka in Telephone Conversation, their attitude was to dismiss or mock any insinuation that the English were superior to Nigerians. To this day Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation remains the only testimony I have of the racism my parents’ generation encountered as students in England. I went to school there at the age of fourteen. I was in a fairly international boarding school, but no one needed to tell me the dominant culture was English. I responded to that in Telephone Conversation fashion, but my mouth often got me in trouble. Once, a teacher got so furious with me she called me a bitch. Recently, Professor Soyinka has inspired me to think about creative ways to bring drama to a Nigerian audience, but I cannot claim his work has impacted mine. I aspire to attainable standards! I admire him greatly for what he has contributed to Nigeria and Nigerian literature. He is a man of huge intellectual capacity, astonishing courage and a tireless advocate. Trivial as it might seem, I would love to know his beauty secrets. He looks incredible at 78.

Sefi Atta is the award winning Author of Everything Good Will Come, News from Home and Swallow

Ahmed Maiwada: I think Soyinka is a unique writer

I first encountered Soyinka at the senior secondary school level, when we studied his Three Short Plays and some of his short poems. I had no thought of becoming a writer then, and meeting him did little to stir my interest. Growing up, I’ve read some more of Soyinka. I think he is a unique writer. But his style of poetry; loaded with ironies and politics, is hardly my style. There is sarcasm in some of what I write. But that can be an influence blowing in the wind and not particularly Soyinka’s.

Ahmed Maiwada is a poet, critic and novelist. He is the author of Musdoki and his latest novel, Healing, will be out soon.

Toyin Adewale-Gabriel: Soyinka is an inspiration

I first encountered Wole Soyinka’s work in secondary school. His poem, Telephone Conversation and his play, The Trials of Brother Jero were required reading in form four and five. I first had the opportunity of a chance encounter with him in 1984 as an undergraduate at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). He was ascending a staircase on which l was descending at the Faculty of Theatre Arts. He was unmistakeable with his mop of hair, not quite gray as it is today and his distingusihed face. I was awe struck as l greeted him good morning…

As a student of literature and as a writer, l have encountered Soyinka’s work through the years but my favourite work of his is Death and the King’s Horseman, that epic epitome of exsistentiality. To watch a good production of the play is a never to be forgotten experience, the poetry of it, the music, the inherent wisdom,the history, the youth sacrificed on the altar of an elder’s enjoyment. How proverbial that play is today, as we see the drama of governance played out on our nationscape.

Soyinka is of course an inspiration and will always be one of Nigeria’s best export.  There  are icons that come once in a generation, originals that cannot be cloned.  Like Nelson Mandela, like Awolowo. Soyinka has earned his place in the history books and has used the authority of his writing to speak for a better Nigeria, for a better humankind, for us all.

Toyin Adewale-Gabriel is the award winning author of Bitter Chocolate, a collection of short stories and Naked Testimonies (poetry). She is also a poetry editor.

Uche Peter Umez: Soyinka’s works have entranced me

Truth be told, I didn’t have the patience then to read The Interpreters and Ake, two books by Wole Soyinka I first chanced upon; maybe because when I first encountered his writing sometime between 1994 and 1995 as a somewhat baffled undergraduate, I was only looking for an easy read, something mildly serious yet absolutely entertaining; maybe because I didn’t think I would someday see myself as a creative writer, so I couldn’t care less about the writings of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate for Literature.

Then, by accident – which is how I even found myself taking literature rather seriously to begin with – I read The Man Died, which in some way captured how I felt at the time, a teenager caught up in adolescent angst, circumscribed by an eerie sense of confinement, albeit not political. I was entranced and simply fascinated not by the striking dark images, but by the intensity that interspersed the entire breadth of that influential work!

I became keen on Soyinka’s writings at once. A Shuttle in the Crypt was next. I soon realised the distinctive way with which he coins words. Remember the scene where in Madmen and Specialists the Cripple says, ‘On his arm his wife was gushpillating…’ That remains my most favourite word in literature; that word resonates with me any time I’m tempted to invent my own, and sometimes stings me whenever I feel my writing sounds like one graceless piece of gushpillating.

Multiple award winning writer, Uche Peter Umez is the author of Runaway Hero, Dark Through the Delta (poems) and Tears in Her Eyes (short stories). He is a remarkable poet and children’s stories writer.