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Quote by Wole Soyinka

“You have the entire gamut of human experience captured in the mythology of the Yoruba. This is what makes the Yoruba mythology a natural source material for me in my creative endeavours.”

Quote by Wole Soyinka

Author

Wole Soyinka is a renowned Nigerian writer, playwright, poet, and political activist. Born on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, Nigeria, Soyinka is known for his profound social commentary and critical literary works. His writings span various forms, including drama, poetry, and fiction, often exploring themes of race, class, colonialism, and African identity. more

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“I do not believe that it is necessarily the duty of the writer to give a voice to his community. If a writer is true to his vocation, to his or her vocation, the very process of creativity enlarges these human horizons. It provides insights, even when you're not writing, when your writing's not dealing with a concrete political situation.”

Ifs Giving Writing Believe Humans Political Process Voice Community Situation Creativity Duty Insight Horizon Concrete Vocation

Author:Wole Soyinka

“The very function of creativity, of the elaboration of the human condition only enlarges the human spirit and, I mean, as a writer I don't want to read political literature all the time. It would be terribly boring and, you know, abrasive, but just reading the insights, you know, partaking of the insights of a writer into phenomena, into society, into human relationships, both on a micro level and on a macro level, is already a function.”

“For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.”

Missions Occupation Deuces

Author:Wole Soyinka

“I happen to be unfortunately temperamental. No, my temperament is also, what you describe to rainfalls, the will of society, to combat a number of contradictions. That happens to be my creative temperament.”

Happens Numbers Creative Contradiction Combat Temperament

Author: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.”

Knows Believe Art Literature I Believe Talking Cases Inspire Discipline Prize Chemistry Ghetto Useful Things

Author:Wole Soyinka

“My mind immediately shot to South Africa the moment I sat down to think what I was going to write, what I was going to say. There was no other choice.”

Thinking Writing Mind Moments Choices Shots South Sat South Africa

Author:Wole Soyinka

“Of course I've enjoyed having the Nobel Prize, the prestige that goes along with it, the money that came with it in particular. I was the typical, still am to some extent, impecunious writer, just struggling to make ends meet, so that, nobody's going to deny that at all. In fact, if they want to give it to me a second time, I'm standing by, ready to receive it, but it's a problem, it's a real problem and then expectations and then you have monsters like Sani Abacha who come up from time to time and who would have died a happy man if he'd succeeded in hanging a Nobel Laureate for literature.”

“Intolerance has become, I think, the reigning ideology of the world today, the intolerance versus intolerance and it's taken on lethal proportions.”

Thinking World Today Taken Ideology Proportion Intolerance Versus World Today

Author:Wole Soyinka

“Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it's the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.”

Knows Kind Moments Ideology Intolerance Secular

Author:Wole Soyinka

“Religion has really spawned some monsters. It always has, historically. Go all the way back to the Inquisition, you know, the Crusades, the Jehad and so on.”

Knows Way Monsters Crusades Inquisition

Author:Wole Soyinka