| "Essays have followed upon essays with effortless ease, poems rolled out upon poems, plays upon plays upon memoirs and countless other documents–and in all of them you found the same reflective earnestness, the same challenge for profundity, the same daring provocation for the exploration of new frontiers" |
| Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate |
Eminent scholar, social critic and literary icon, Prof Femi Osofisan, in this interview with IYABO LAWAL of The Guardian, bares his mind on the life and times of Prof. Wole Soyinka, as he attains 80 years...
Wole Soyinka and the literary community
With such a personality, as you must know, it is impossible to answer the question in one word, one sentence. Still, the primary significance of any writer lies in his works. And with Soyinka, we are dealing with an extraordinary creative output that is more or less a deluge— an outpouring of works in different genres that has gone on almost ceaselessly now for more than six decades!
Essays have followed upon essays with effortless ease, poems rolled out upon poems, plays upon plays upon memoirs and countless other documents–and in all of them you found the same reflective earnestness, the same challenge for profundity, the same daring provocation for the exploration of new frontiers.
How else, but with breathless awe, does one acknowledge such an achievement? The pain I feel is that few people have really read the man; that a vast majority know the name and the legend, but have no knowledge of his books or of the ideas in them. Now, it is indisputable that ideas are what fertilise a society. But unfortunately, we don’t care for ideas here, and we writers are like orphans in the community. Unless we sponsor or partake in some political scandal, or take to footballing, we will not be noticed or heard.
Fortunately, Soyinka is that increasingly rare combination of a man of ideas and a man of action. Thus the same society that is willfully ignorant of his books always looks forward—with eagerness or with trepidation—to his fearless interventions in our political life. There is no greater tribute to offer to an exemplary career.
Qualities that have defined Soyinka as a literary giant
A literary giant, so-called, can only be defined either by the quantity or the quality of his or her works. In both aspects, as I have pointed out above, Soyinka’s achievement equals, or even surpasses, that of the best writers anywhere in the world, and indeed of any generation.
Soyinka as a critic, theatre person, human rights activist
I would rate him among the top five in the world in all these areas. Particularly since he was awarded the Nobel Prize, he has employed the prestige of that prize not as an excuse to retire into luxurious living, or indulgent unconcern, but astonishingly as a leverage to further push the universal struggle for human rights, even in circumstances in which he was personally endangered. It is a rare instance of valour.
Age will not slow him down or diminish some of his fiery dispositions
Age is bound to slow him down of course, as we are already noticing. He is not Superman. But it will not muffle or silence his voice.
Lessons derivable from Soyinka’s life
There are always a lot of positive lessons to be learnt from an exemplary life of courage, creativity and commitment. But I’m not sure that our young ones are being positioned or encouraged to learn them. Not any more. The recent results of the Ekiti governorship elections are a big eye-opener to the future we are creating for our youths. But I just hope those who are still concerned about honour, and true heroism, will know that there is no other road towards these than selflessness, sacrifice, diligence, and of course, compassion. Soyinka’s life, as shown in his memoirs, is an eloquent illustration of these virtues.
(Iyabo Lawal, The Guardian)
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