media releases - Wole Soyinka Public Lecture

The College of Human Sciences of the University of South Africa (Unisa) will host renowned Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka at the Africa Speaks Lecture Forum on Wednesday, 1 February 2012. The lecture by Professor Soyinka will take place under the title: ‘The Fictioning of Africa: Children of Herodotus’, and is part of Unisa’s Wole Soyinka Festival, which will take place from 1 to 3 February 2012.  This follows on the African continent’s celebration of the 25^th anniversary of Professor Soyinka’s receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This lecture will take place under the auspices of Africa Speaks, a brainchild of the college through which the African Visiting Scholar of the Month lectures are held.

The vision of the Africa Speaks lecture series is to nurture, develop and sustain a vibrant community of researchers and intellectuals in the College of Human Sciences connected to the African continent and Diaspora to enable continued innovation in the quest for truth and to contribute to universal knowledge and the transformative needs of a developmental Africa state. 

Professor Soyinka is an internationally-acclaimed poet, playwright, novelist and essayist whose works have influenced social discourse on topics such as abuse of power and social injustices by world leaders. Amongst some of the profound and widely read literary works authored by Professor Soyinka are the likes of The Lion and the Jewel, The Interpreters and Death and the King’s Horseman.

Unisa Press will also use the occasion of the lecture to showcase some of their publications, including the book edited by Professor Zodwa Motsa based on Professor Soyinka’s earlier plays entitled ‘Wole Soyinka, The Invention & The Detainee’.

The media is invited to attend this event and the details are as follows: