Soyinka Child of the Forest

Akin Omotoso's 2008 documentary film, Soyinka, Child of the Forest, once shown on DSTV as part of the Great Africans Series, is showing at The Life House, Lagos, this Thursday.

I'm actually in this film... Details of Thursday's screening, below.

EVENT- Screening of The Great African Series - Wole Soyinka
DATE - 21 July 2011 Thursday
TIME- 7.30pm
VENUE - The Life House, 33 Sinari Daranijo Street, off Ligali Ayorinde Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.

A film is shown at The Life House every Thursday evening as part of their Reel Life programme, often in collaboration with the Alliance Francaise.

Yar'Adua's exit

"What passes for the Nigerian nation is nothing more than a tragic arena and Yar’Adua is only the latest tragic figure. The vampires, including those in his own family, turned him into a mere inert resource for their diabolical schemes. They have a reckoning with their conscience, assuming they know what the word means. One can only hope that, while mouthing sanctimonious platitudes such as “Power belongs to God”, they have now learnt that the politics of Do-or-Die cannot guarantee who does and who dies. They must stop playing God."

• Wole Soyinka on Yar'Adua's death

Kopano Matlwa and Wale Okediran share the WS Prize

This was the moment South African author, Kopano Matlwa found out she is a joint winner of the 2010 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. The honour - for Matlwa's novel, Coconut (published by Jacana, SA), was announced last night at the grand award ceremony, held at the Civic Centre in Lagos. The South African shares the $20,000 prize with Nigerian author Wale Okediran (who won for his novel, Tenants of the House). The third shortlisted writer, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, went without. Nwaubani had already won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Best First Book (Africa Region) for her much talked about novel, I Do Not Come To You By Chance.

Organised by the Lumina Foundation (founded by writer Ogochukwu Promise), it was a grand event all right, but one bedevilled by dreadfully freakish, deafening feedback from the sound equipment, such that speakers often had to address the large hall without a microphone. But the award ceremony soldiered on regardless. The Crown Troupe of Africa (led by its founder Segun Adefila) provided most of the entertainment for the night. Amongst many performances, the Crown Troupe did opening segments of 2 Wole Soyinka plays: Death and the King's Horseman and The Trials of Brother Jero. The opening (church) scene of Jero was hilarious and brought the house down. Even Soyinka could be seen laughing where he sat.

Thankfully, unlike some Nigerian prizes whose award galas are dominated by useless politicians, only literary figures and, to a lesser extent, business people were given prominence at the WS award night; and the most distinguished guest of course was the man after whom the award is named.

"Thank you, Franco," said Wole Soyinka, when called by Francesca Emmanuel (member of the board of trustees for the Lumina) to speak. "I thought I'd just come here an sit down and be an icon. Icons don't make speeches," said WS. After complaining about Nigerian cameramen at events like this who don't take their shots and move on but block people's views, Soyinka humorously suggested guests use their dinner forks to poke "the soft backside of a cameraman."

More seriously, Kongi expressed concerns about Africa-wide prizes administered in Nigeria being constantly won by Nigerians. The first Wole Soyinka Prize (held 6 August 2006) was won by Sefi Atta, the second (2 February 2008) was won by Nnedi Okorafor. Soyinka noted that he was involved in an international painting competition administered from Lagos as part of the Black Heritage Festival earlier this month, and a Nigerian won that too. "It's embarrassing," he said, wondering if our style with political results was now creeping into the creative arena. He recalled judging a literature competition (names of writers withheld from him) only for the organisers to come back to alert him to the fact that a Nigerian was not among the winners. I imagine WS probably replying, "So what?"

To Okediran in the audience, the Nobel laureate said, "Wale, I'm sorry, but I hope you don't win tonight." Soyinka made clear that he has no involvement in the organisation or the judging of the WS Prize; his one commitment is to always - as long as he is able, even if on walking stick - turn up to present the prize to the winner (I guess every two years now, going by the regularity of the WS prize so far).

Anyway, Soyinka's message got through loud and clear at the Civic Centre: you can't have a Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa - won over and over again by Nigerians only. The press has also been highlighting the fact that the winners until this year, had been women - was it a women only prize? Quite what bearing any of this had on the eventual 2010 result of winners as announced by Chair of the judges, Olu Obafemi, may be debated. Other judges were: Id Shabbir (Algeria), Liesle Louw (South Africa), Sidaho Makubho (Cote D'Ivoire) and Solomon Mensah (Ghana).

Kopano Matlwa and Wale Okediran were jointly presented the $20,000 cheque by Wole Soyinka.

• Images by MW

Drama: Kongi's Harvest

A Season of Soyinka Plays

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Every Sunday in July

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@

Terra Kulture

Tiamiyu Savage V.I, Lagos

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*Kicks off with a play by Wole Oguntokun

(Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?),

then continues with works by the man himself.

• 1 July: Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka? - written by Wole Oguntokun
• 8 July: The Lion and the Jewel - directed by Tunji Sotimirin
• 15 July: Death and the King's Horseman - directed by Segun Adefila
• 22 July: Camwood on the Leaves - directed by Lekan Balogun
• 29 July: The Jero Plays (Trials of Brother Jero & Jero's Metamorphosis) directed by Wole Oguntokun

WS: Pugilist & Peacemaker

There is no escaping Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka in the UK media presently. He gave the Raymond Williams lecture at the Hay Literary Festival on Saturday 26 May; a fact I relayed to a poet friend at mid-afternoon on the day only for him to say: "Ehn, Kongi is reading? Tell me how to get to Hay-on-Wye." I had to disappoint him and say it was much too late for a last minute hop. Plus I've never done the Hay Festival myself, so I'd be the last person to advise...

The Saturday's Review section had a half-page review of Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn (newly published in the UK) by Margaret Busby.

Fast forward to today, and Soyinka is on the cover of The Guardian's G2 section. Inside is a profile by Maya Jaggi.

An excerpt that touches on tomorrow's inauguration of a 'new' Nigerian President...
Tomorrow's inauguration of Nigeria's new president, Umaru Yar'Adua, is, for Soyinka, such a throwback. Along with international observers, he deems last month's presidential elections "no elections at all", so baldly were they rigged. "In some states there were no votes," he says. "We have videos of police commissioners carting off ballot boxes, and police looking on as thugs carted them off." Though the outgoing president, Olusegun Obasanjo, ended military rule in 1999, Soyinka sees his rule as "civilian dictatorship". He has now "made himself life chairman of the ruling party to dictate policies", he says.

On the situation in Darfur...
Soyinka presided as chief judge at a mock trial last November when Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was found guilty in absentia of crimes against humanity in Darfur. For the playwright, poet and novelist, who is also an actor-director, the symbolic court was "play-acting, but of a very serious kind". During the tribunal set up by Genocide Watch, Soyinka heard searing testimony, he says, from "witnesses flown out from southern Sudan, people whose families had been killed, or who had been raped or seen relatives raped or maimed - some broke down. They testified to the war crimes of the Janjaweed [the government's proxy militia], saying they raided villages and killed Nuba at any time."

Soyinka quoted a Yoruba saying, "Sooner death than indignity" (iku ya j'esin) to underscore his belief in dignity as the basis for human freedom. There's much to nod along with WS on, as always. But he still lets Tony Blair off too easily, in my view.

• Soyinka who was also in discussion with Helen Oyeyemi courtesy of The Telegraph recently, will be giving the first ever South Bank Lecture in London on 7 July.