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Transcription: [00:02:27]
[[music]]
Excerpt from the writing of Wole Soyinka. Today on the literary corner, you will hear professor Jonathan Peters discuss Soyinka's life and works. Professor Peters resigns at the University of Maryland in the Department of African American studies. Peters is an expert on African literature and culture, having as his major work "A Dance of Masks" Senghor, Achebe, Soyinka. Peters is known for his outstanding work on Wole Soyinka. And now the interview with professor Jonathan Peters on Wole Soyinka.

[00:03:02]
{Speaker name= "Jonathan Peters"}
Wole Soyinka started writing drama, in the-, around about 1960. I think he probably started in 1959. It's curious that he had started with short stories, but in 1960 he wrote his first major play which was called "A Dance of the Forests" and it was designed to celebrate Nigerian independence. Nigeria became independent in 1960 and Soyinka is a Yoruba from Western Nigeria. He's written several plays since then some short plays, but since 1965 he extended to write major plays, full-length plays that is, except for one play I think which is the second, a sequel to his "The Trials of Brother Gerlad" and he calls this "Gerald's Metamorphasis" I think is the title of it

[00:03:52]
Uh- he's written plays as you indicate and that's his major forté, but he's also written fiction and he's written poetry. Poetry I think was, may have been a first love, what with dramas you know you reach a wider audience

[00:04:08]

{Speaker name= Brooks B. Robinson}
Yes. Now, how does Soyenka compare with some of the other major writers, African writers, for example [[?]] and [[?]], etcetera.

[00:04:21]
{Speaker name= "Jonathan Peters"}
Well, Soyenka is primarily a dramatist, and I believe there is no question at all that he is the foremost dramatist in Africa, in Black Africa today. He's written about a dozen or more plays, just off the cuff, and this is unparalleled, not just in quantity of course but also in quality because he's a poet, he's a writer who has evolved over the years. It's difficult I think to make a comparison between a poet and a dramatist, and singer as a poet, or a poet and a novelist and [[?]] is a novelist, but in fact I did make this attempt in the study I wrote on the three writers-