SOURCE: Gates Jr., Henry Louis. “Wole Soyinka: Mythopoesis and the Agon of Democracy.” Georgia Review 49, no. 1 (spring 1995): 187-94.

In the following essay, Gates explores Soyinka's unique and influential position in African literature, culture, and politics, arguing that Soyinka “bears a relation to the poetics of Africa akin to that which Shakespeare bore to England.”

This coming June, Wole Soyinka—the first African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature—will be honored by the International Human Rights Law Group with its Annual Human Rights Award, “in recognition of [his] perseverance for the cause of human rights and democracy in Nigeria, with great eloquence and against great odds. … At extreme personal risk,” the award letter continues “you have become an international voice for the voiceless and the persecuted in Nigeria, and have remained true to the principles of social justice and public accountability.” Soyinka—who has been forced into...