Wole Soyinka's writing

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Novelist Ben Okri, playwright Oladipo Agboluaje and academic Louisa Egbunike join Matthew Sweet to look at the influential writing of Nigerian playwright and author Wole Soyinka - and specifically at his play 1975 Death and the King's Horseman. In 1986 he became the first African author to be given the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has worked teaching at many universities in the USA, and began playwriting after studying at University College Ibadan, and then at Leeds University and working as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre.

You can find a playlist of discussions devoted to Landmarks of Culture on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44 A BBC TV documentary about the African novel presented by David Olusoga is screening in August.

Extract from Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka features Danny Sapani as Elesin. Produced by Pauline Harris for the BBC. First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 13th July 2014

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:39.7	I'm Matthew Sweet and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast, which will now approach a mountainous
0:45.0	figure in world literature, Walei Shoyinka, and it'll do that with the help of the novelist
0:50.0	Ben Okre, the academic Louisa Eboniquet and the playwright Ola Dipo Abolowage.
0:55.3	And a mystery guest too. All will be revealed after these messages.
1:03.5	Hi, I'm Amal Rajan and I want to tell you about a new podcast from the BBC. It's called Rethink.
1:09.9	The podcast is all about the enormous opportunity we have
	...

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