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Death and the King's Horsemen Author Biography

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka was born in Ijebu Isara, near Akeokuta in western Nigeria, on July 13, 1934. His parents, who were from different Yoruba-speaking ethnic groups, were Christians, but other relatives observed African beliefs and deities. Nigeria was at the time a colony of Great Britain. Soyinka grew up, therefore, with exposure to both Yoruban and Western culture. At twenty he left Nigeria to attend the University of Leeds in England, a university with a strong drama program. After graduation he joined London's Royal Court Theatre as a script-reader and then as a writer, and produced his first play, The Swamp Dwellers, there in 1959.

The next year Nigeria gained independence. Soyinka returned to his homeland, where the Arts Theatre in Ibadan had begun presenting plays by Nigerian playwrights, on Nigerian themes, for Nigerian audiences. Soyinka traveled throughout Nigeria, absorbing all he could of the Yoruba people's rich oral...
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