On Oct. 8, 1986, Nigerian author Wole Soyinka became the first person of African descent to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Soyinka is regarded as one of the Africa's most prolific and celebrated writers and is the author of nearly 20 works including plays, novels and poetry.

Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973). He has written numerous poetry collections, including Idanre and Other Poems (1967), Poems From Prison (1969) and and Mandela's Earth and Other Poems (1988).

Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria, and attended Government College in Ibadan and the University of Leeds where he earned a doctorate in 1973. Soyinka is known for being an outspoken social critic and activist, and his work is known for its ability to convey traditional African themes with clarity and realism within traditional European dramatic formats.

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