Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright and poet who was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. A prolific writer, Soyinka has authored 29 plays, two novels, and many memoirs, essays, and poetry collections. After studying and working in the United Kingdom, he became heavily involved in Nigeria’s struggle for independence. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio to demand the cancellation of rigged regional elections in western Nigeria. During the Nigerian Civil War, Soyinka was arrested and put in solitary confinement for two years. Soyinka has taught at numerous universities, including Cornell, Emory, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, and Obafemi Awolowo, and is currently a professor-in -residence at Loyola Marymount University.