Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honoured in that category

NAME: Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka

DATE OF BIRTH: 13 July 1934 (age 83 years)

PLACE OF BIRTH: Abeokuta

MARRIED TO: Folake Doherty-Soyinka

CHILDREN: Olaokun Soyinka, Moremi Soyinka-Onijala, Peyibomi Soyinka-Airewele, Makin Soyinka, Iyetade Apampa

OCCUPATION:  Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist.

EDUCATION: Abeokuta Grammar School, University of London International Programmes, University of Ibadan

CAREER AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES: A poet etc

PUBLICATIONS: Kongi’s Harvest, Shout Gladi Gladi, Keffi’s Birthday Treat (1954)
The Invention (1957)
The Swamp Dwellers (1958)
A Quality of Violence (1959)[62]
The Lion and the Jewel (1959)
The Trials of Brother Jero
A Dance of the Forests (1960)
My Father’s Burden (1960)
The Strong Breed (1964)
Before the Blackout (1964)
Kongi’s Harvest (1964)
The Road (1965)
Madmen and Specialists (1970)
The Bacchae of Euripides (1973)
Camwood on the Leaves (1973)
Jero’s Metamorphosis (1973)
Death and the King’s Horseman (1975)
Opera Wonyosi (1977)
Requiem for a Futurologist (1983)
Sixty-Six (short piece) (1984)[63]
A Play of Giants (1984)
Childe Internationale (1987)[64][65]
From Zia with Love (1992)
The Detainee (radio play)
A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play)
The Beatification of Area Boy (1996)
Document of Identity (radio play, 1999)
King Baabu (2001)
Etiki Revu Wetin
Alapata Apata (2011)
Novels
The Interpreters (1964)
Season of Anomy (1972)
Short stories
A Tale of Two (1958)
Egbe’s Sworn Enemy (1960)
Madame Etienne’s Establishment (1960) etc

ACHIEVEMENTS: 1973: Honorary D.Litt, University of Leeds
1973–74: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge
1983: Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
1983: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, United States
1986: Nobel Prize for Literature
1986: Agip Prize for Literature
1986: Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR).
1990: Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature
1993: Honorary doctorate, Harvard University
2002: Honorary fellowship, SOAS
2005: Honorary doctorate degree, Princeton University
2005: Conferred with the chieftaincy title of the Akinlatun of Egbaland by the Oba Alake of the Egba clan of Yorubaland. Soyinka became a tribal aristocrat by way of this, one vested with the right to use the Yoruba title Oloye as a pre-nominal honourific.
2009: Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award
2013: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lifetime Achievement, United States
2014: International Humanist Award
2017: Joins the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Humanities
2017 “Special Prize” of the Europe Theatre Prize

HONORS AND AWARDS:  Nobel Prize in Literature, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honoured in that category.