It takes a diabolical mind to have invented the Nobel Prize for Literature’—Soyinka — Mike Awoyinfa Column

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In 1986 Wole Soyinka became the first African writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in Nigeria, in 1934, he considers himself a dramatist, but has also written novels, poetry, a classic of prison literature, and two volumes of memoirs Ake. His plays include The Lion and the Jewel (1963), The Road (1965), Madmen and Specialists (1971), Death and the King’s Horsemen (1975) and A Play of Giants (1984). Soyinka’s first novel was The Interpreters (1965). It was followed by Season of Anomy (1973). Volumes of poetry include Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988). He has written about his experience of imprisonment in The Man Died (1972) and, in poetic form, A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972). Soyinka has written about Nigeria in The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis (1996). His memoir, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years, appeared in 1994. In 1998, The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness was published. This interview was conducted in March 1990.*** Bigsby: In 1986 you received the Nobel Prize. Is there a downside to getting such an award?Soyinka: My favourite story is that of Bernard Shaw when he was given the award. He said, and I agree with him absolutely, that he could forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite but it takes a diabolical mind to have invented the Nobel Prize for Literature. That is my position exactly. Of course, it is a very great honour and it has enormous advantages. For one thing, unless you are careless with your money, you are not wondering how to pay for the next bottle of wine, to put it mildly. Also for me, personally, it has enabled me to do things like setting up a small foundation to promote certain cultural projects in Nigeria and Africa. But in terms of what it does to your creative rhythm, it is real war; it is war to recover that rhythm. You have to make up your mind and really go at it. That discovery cannot happen just by saying, as I did in the first year, oh, all this will pass away. A new beauty queen will be crown at the end of this year and I will be free. I said this to Garcia Marquez when we met in Cuba. He said, ‘How are you taking it?’ I said, ‘Not well, but it’ll soon be over.’ ‘Ha! Is that what you think? I am still suffering from the effects of it.’ I find that he is right to a great extent. Bigsby: At the present moment we have got one writer who is the head of state, Vaclav Havel. We have another who has run for public office, Mario Vargas Llosa. Have you ever been tempted to put work on one side and take public office? Soyinka: I have thought of it, yes, simply because the logic of criticism is to demonstrate the practicality of your criticism of the regime, the government. I have been involved in so many creative aspects of society that it is inevitable that one should wonder from time to time whether one should not think of the possibility of creating a model of what you see, what you envisage, when you fling acerbic criticisms as those who run your society. Of course, there have been pressures for me to run for public office. But the upshot of it is that I think I am temperamentally at loggerheads with that kind of solution. I do not believe that I have the temperament to sustain the many demands of public office. I think I have just decided that it is not for me. I have become intent on encouraging other writers to do so, because I do believe that writers and artists should not hesitate, if the conditions are right, and if they feel that they have the temperament. But it does require a very special temperament. I have studied public-office holders of many, many kinds and I find that there is a special temperament which one can recognize in those who make a successful vocation of it. In my own case, I feel that the remnants of my privacy, which I value very, very passionately, will be eroded and I am somebody who needs quite a lot of privacy. I believe I already expend too much of myself, that there is already too much of a public persona. I need to protect what is left of my privacy. Bigsby: Isn’t there a problem in that power tends to speak with a single voice, whereas writers are concerned with deploying a pluralism of voices, especially playwrights. Soyinka: I think this is one of the transformations which a writer can bring to a position in government. A writer might just be able to indicate that it is possible to be pluralistic in one’s approach to the art of government. I do not see why a writer should feel obliged to follow the tradition of governments. I have never accepted it. I think that government should be a creative art. Why not? Bigsy: Of your two latest books, one is a volume of poems, one is the second part of your autobiography. Is the next thing we are going to see a play?Soyinka: You may have guessed correctly. I have been able to work in the theatre a bit since the Nobel event. I spent a few months in Martinique working in the theatre company there, putting on one of my own plays. I also directed a play in New York. But you are right. I am starved of the theatre and have been trying to put a company together in Nigeria in the past few months. I have just completed a play for BBC radio. The problem with me is that when I work in theatre I like to work whole-heartedly. It is what we were discussing earlier, about the theatre as a medium. I am not content with writing the play. The act of writing the play already pulls me towards settling down on the stage with the actors, rehearsing. It is that creative space that I have been trying to carve out for myself and which I think is now coming towards fulfilment. So you guess right.