{"id":7996,"date":"2024-09-24T11:38:14","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T11:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/24\/turning-my-life-into-something-people-can-watch-pains-me-wole-soyinka-on-having-his-memoir-made-into-a-movie\/"},"modified":"2024-09-24T11:38:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T11:38:14","slug":"turning-my-life-into-something-people-can-watch-pains-me-wole-soyinka-on-having-his-memoir-made-into-a-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/24\/turning-my-life-into-something-people-can-watch-pains-me-wole-soyinka-on-having-his-memoir-made-into-a-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Turning my life into something people can watch, pains me\u2019: Wole Soyinka on having his memoir made into a movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wole Soyinka became the first Black African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, and is now one of the continent\u2019s most revered authors. But two decades earlier, he was sent to prison without trial for speaking out about the civil war in his native Nigeria. <\/p>\n

While in solitary confinement he scrawled notes and poems using meat bones, handmade ink and toilet paper. Those ideas became the memoir \u201cThe Man Died,\u201d published in 1972, which is now the framework of a movie of the same name that recounts the playwright and novelist\u2019s life at the height of the civil war. <\/p>\n

The following interview was edited and condensed for clarity.<\/em> <\/p>\n

Larry Madowo: What did it feel like to go to prison just because you were agitating for what you felt was right?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Wole Soyinka: <\/strong>It was a very testing period for me. Twenty-two months in total isolation, denied books, denied paper, my cell constantly searched, nothing at all to sustain my mind. <\/p>\n

I think one of the most cunning categories of humanity that I\u2019ve ever encountered is the prisoner. The prisoner has to survive. It\u2019s a survival test, not a question of self-advancement. <\/p>\n

And (in solitary confinement) what is the most space-economic enterprise you could undertake? The mental enterprise, calculations, mathematics. I made my own ink with dirt; I made my own pen from the bones in the meat of my food, creating a complete self-sustaining mental micro-world of my own. It was also a dangerous period for the mind. <\/p>\n

I remember when I used to hallucinate, so I would leap up and try and destroy those kinds of hallucinatory images that came out. But eventually, I mastered all that period, and after that, I began recollecting those formulae in geometry and trigonometry which I had hated, and I began pulling them back, making calculations on the ground. <\/p>\n

Believe it or not, I rediscovered the theory of permutations and combinations. Those things I had hated in school became my sustenance. <\/p>\n

LM: You wrote about those prison years in a memoir which has now been turned into a movie, \u201cThe Man Died.\u201d Have you seen it yet?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong> No. Let me put it this way, turning anything in my life into something other people can watch, pains me. I assisted them in trying to locate a house in which I hid and operated during the civil war. They were looking for something close to one we were using during that period. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just about me alone, it\u2019s also about a particular period. I might watch it eventually, but not immediately. Even this very interview we\u2019re doing, I won\u2019t watch. It always takes a while to bring myself to watch me. <\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Nigerian playwright, novelist and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Wole Soyinka poses for a portrait in Johannesburg on April 4, 2024.<\/span> <\/div>
MARCO LONGARI\/AFP\/AFP via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

LM: You don\u2019t make a big fuss about your birthday, but you just turned 90, which is a big deal.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>Well, the annoying thing is that I don\u2019t feel 90. But I will confess that I do share some kind of ritualistic aspect of the birthday. So it\u2019s not a question of dislike, it\u2019s just that I like to have it on my own. Usually what I do on my birthday is disappear into the forest. That\u2019s my normal way of spending birthdays. <\/p>\n

LM: <\/strong> Do you remember when you became politically active? <\/strong> <\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong> I was a great eavesdropper on my parents\u2019 conversation, especially around my father\u2019s (a school principal and priest in the Anglican church) colleagues. I remember sitting behind an armchair listening. <\/p>\n

My mother would arrive and report what had gone on. My father\u2019s whole circle was also involved that way, so I would say that this was the beginning of my political involvement. <\/p>\n

When the women rioted in this very town where we are now, Abeokuta, my mother was involved as a lieutenant of (women\u2019s rights activist) Mrs. Ransome Kuti, (famed Afrobeat musician) Fela K\u00fat\u00ec\u2019s mother. So as a child, when all the rioting was taking place, I became a courier between the various women\u2019s camps passing messages. <\/p>\n

LM: Seeing your mother involved in this political activism appeared to have planted the seed for your life\u2019s work.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>That\u2019s correct. Being actually within the environment, that struggle of militancy against an unacceptable situation that these women were facing, how their goods were being seized by police in the marketplaces, if they didn\u2019t pay taxes, some of them beaten up, roughed up, and so on. <\/p>\n

Being part and parcel of this and seeing them set upon on their way to go and pass more oppressive legislation, I took the side of the women most naturally (and) that reflected in my writing. No question at all. <\/p>\n

LM: There\u2019s a legend about you sneaking into a radio station and swapping out a political speech for something more critical, what\u2019s the truth?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>Well, the first thing I have to remind you is that I was tried and acquitted. Yes, it\u2019s true, there\u2019s no point in denying it any longer that I felt compelled to stop the further broadcast of false results. <\/p>\n

I witnessed firsthand the destruction of polling booths, even the tearing up of results. I was already heavily politicized at that time, but when I saw this oppressive regime about to reinstall itself, and people have to remember, it was the most cynical regime, which went so far as to declare on radio to say, \u201cwe don\u2019t give a damn if you vote for us,\u201d it just triggered my already highly honed militant sense. So it was part of an ongoing struggle on so many levels. Yeah, guilty, but there was no alternative at that time. <\/p>\n

LM: After receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, it took a long time for another (Black) African to<\/strong> receive that honor. What did that feel like at the time? <\/strong> <\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>Isolated. I was most relieved when the next African came because so much was demanded of you. It was like overnight your constituency expanded simply because you come from the African continent. On the one hand, of course, a sense of recognition, which is very good. Opening certain doors, but then there were not many doors which I was looking to enter anyway, I just enjoyed my profession, full stop. <\/p>\n

But at the same time, especially in societies like ours, it exposed you a lot more. I always remind people that one of the most brutal dictators we had here, Sani Abacha, would\u2019ve gone to his grave a happy man if he hanged a Nobel Laureate, if he may be able to put that on his CV. As it is, he had to be content with hanging an activist, a writer, and his eight companions. I\u2019m referring to Ken Saro-Wiwa. <\/p>\n

So it exposed me to very great dangers because I refuse to back down on my beliefs, on my activities simply because I\u2019ve become a Nobel laureate. Why should I stop things which preoccupied me before the Nobel? <\/p>\n

But it was grand when one after the other (African Nobel winners) began to come in. Now, I\u2019ve been able to enjoy for some time now being a Nobelist rather being feeling sometimes like a showpiece. <\/p>\n