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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
Translator
Writer
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Remaining
First
Property
Nobel
Even
Walk
Yards
World
Personal
African
Walks
Paris
Frankfurt
Black
Stopped
Laureate
Lost
Shreds
Firsts
Considered
Anonymity
Without
London

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There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda.
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Obasanjo has openly endorsed violence as a means of governance, embraced and empowered individuals whose avowed declarations, confessions and acts are cynically contrary to the mandate that alone upholds the legitimacy and dignity of his office.
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Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
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It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own salvation.
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Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
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I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
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History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
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When I say war, I'm not talking about mental war I'm talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.
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There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
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I said: A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: I am a tiger. When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
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I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
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For many playwrights, they write the plays anyway because they've got to be, the work has been started, it's got to be finished, but we all long, I think, to see the plays fleshed out on stage and I'm exactly like that. Yes, I'm not satisfied until I actually see it on stage.
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
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Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.
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What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from time to time it's possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
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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
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The Egba kingdom was one of the very last to be ceded to the British protectorate. It remained almost an independent entity within what is now known as Nigeria, simply because of its own traditional structure of governance.
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
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