WOLE SOYINKA, the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a distinguished playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist of global stature. Born in Nigeria, Soyinka studied at University College in Ibadan, Nigeria and University of Leeds, England. Soyinka's prolific body of work includes several poetry collections, over 20 plays, five memoirs including Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), and three novels—The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1973), and Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (2021).