Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

fight against political , social and economic corruption in Nigeria and other parts of the
world. For exam ple. he transformed. Euri pides ' the Baccnae into a drama agains t
forms of oppression in 1m . and in 1m , he directed and acted in The Biko Inquest,
a play about the South African court proccc:dings following the death in police custod y
of Steve Bike, a black anti-apartheid leader. In Wok Scyinka , James Gibbs comments
on the play:
The production wasa clinical expose of the inhumanity and deceit in
far-off South Africa. but the play was not allowed to become in any
sense escapist. All the parts were taken by black acton, and the piece
was obviously relevant to the Nigeria in which police brutali ty and lack
of integrity in the judici.al system were common-place (I 2) .
Soyinka has used whatever means he couId to communicate his opposition against
tribalism, racism. corru ption and oppression in Nigeria and abroad . He says, in an
interview with Stctesbury, that when he was unable to raise sufficient funds to make
an agirprop film . he recorded the songs in an album , entitled Unlimi ted liability
Company(1983) , which effective ly and economically expressed his views about the
socio-political situation in Nigeriaand was widely distribu ted among the masses.
In 1986. Wa le Soyinb became the first and only West African to receive the
Nobel Prize for Literature, He has also bad many national and internati onal awards
and honours including , the John Whiting Drama Award (1967); Jock Campbell -New
States man Literary Award (1968); Commander, Federal Republic of Nigeria (19 86);
the Order of La Ugioo d 'H onneur from France (1989); the Akogun of Isara (1989) ;
AkinIanm of Egbaland (1990) ; the Order of the Republic of Italy (1990) ; and Premio
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