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Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.
Wole Soyinka
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Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Professor
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Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
First
Property
Remaining
Even
Walk
Nobel
World
Personal
Yards
Walks
African
Black
Paris
Frankfurt
Lost
Stopped
Laureate
Firsts
Considered
Shreds
Without
London
Anonymity
More quotes by Wole Soyinka
I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.
Wole Soyinka
My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.
Wole Soyinka
I believe that prizes are useful things for the disciplines, whether we are talking about chemistry or we're talking... It motivates, it, you know, inspires, it encourages and it brings, in the case of literature, it brings literature, the arts out of the ghetto.
Wole Soyinka
You accept whoever you are interacting with, directly, or indirectly.
Wole Soyinka
I think most writers would like a quiet space, complete isolation, in which they control their own time. Spaces of creativity in which there's very little interruption.
Wole Soyinka
African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
Wole Soyinka
I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.
Wole Soyinka
I tend to work best as a one-man Task Force, including even the roles of messenger, coffee maker and office cleaner.
Wole Soyinka
See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
Wole Soyinka
It is not fair to those who fight corruption that they have to fight the aggressiveness, the impunity of the corrupt.
Wole Soyinka
For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
Wole Soyinka
The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
Wole Soyinka
But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.
Wole Soyinka
I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
Wole Soyinka
There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
Wole Soyinka
Sadly however, I discovered in one particular case that a colleague went and paid the bribe on my behalf, just to get our mission fulfilled. That was painful, and it strained our friendship.
Wole Soyinka
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
Wole Soyinka
As a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
Wole Soyinka
I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.
Wole Soyinka
My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience.
Wole Soyinka