SOURCE: King, Bruce. “Wole Soyinka and the Nobel Prize for Literature.” Sewanee Review 96, no. 2 (spring 1988): 339-45.

In the following essay, King discusses the development of Soyinka's overall body of work—from The Interpreters to Death and the King's Horseman—and what Soyinka's receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature means for African writers.

The cultural map of the world is changing radically, and recognition of Soyinka's writings constitutes part of our increased awareness of modern Africa, including its popular music, its contemporary art, and the impressive body of literature that the continent is now producing in response to rapid political, social, and economic changes. One of the best dramatists of our time, Wole Soyinka blends African with European cultural traditions, the high seriousness of modernist elite literature, and the topicality of African popular theater. He is a modern who writes from an African-centered world view without nostalgia for...