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Wole Soyinka (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)

Early Life

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (pronounced Shoy-ink-a) was born July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta in Western Nigeria, to Ayo and Eniola Soyinka. His mother was a successful businesswoman, his father the headmaster of the local missionary school, which Soyinka attended as a child. Describing his earliest memories in an autobiographical work, Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), Soyinka remembers that his father seemed to be on a first-name basis with God; he recalls that his mother was nicknamed “the Wild Christian,” for her flamboyant faith.

The young Soyinka...

[The entire page is 3336 words long]

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