Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, says late renowned novelist, Prof Chinua Achebe, disappointed him by his comment shortly after he (Soyinka) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.
Soyinka, in an interview on Channels Television’s Book Club with an American-based Nigerian novelist, Okey Ndibe, said he considered such a remark by Achebe as uncalled for and disappointing.
Recalling how Achebe had at one time said, “The Nobel Prize did not make one the Asiwaju of African Literature,” Ndibe had asked Soyinka how he felt about that statement at the time.
The Nobel laureate in his response said, “The subject was not even literature when he (Achebe) made that statement and so I was disappointed that he created a nexus between my normal sociopolitical life and my normal way of articulating an opinion.
“It was almost like because I won the Nobel Prize, I have no right to offer, to do what I used to do before all my life. I responded to it, even though I wanted to make light of it. I was a little bit disappointed and I didn’t see the necessity; that particular subject, which was under contention, didn’t relate to literature. So, it was like, oh, am I now to carry this burden for the rest of my life? That people will think I am doing what I used to do before simply because I now have a Nobel Prize.”
On his views about how literary enthusiasts often segregate themselves into either Soyinka camp or Achebe camp, Soyinka said it amounted to “ignorance.”
“Everybody feels they have a right to pronounce authoritatively, not only on the products but on the producers of the products and their positions in society,” he said.
The playwright said he would never speak about the works of other professionals, such as architects, musicians, doctors, lawyers. etc, the way people “pontificate on literature.”
Earlier, when asked what his experience had been after winning the Nobel prize, Soyinka said, “It has bred demands, expectations; it has bred even envy in some areas – one can cope with that – antagonism where totally unnecessary, uncalled for. But that’s part of human life; any kind of achievement does that.”