Wole Soyinka was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature in obvious acknowledgement of his international stature as a writer and also of his lifelong commitment to the cause of justice – for him, writing is inextricably linked with the effort to create a just and democratic society in post-colonial Africa. Soyinka's use of literature and the theatre in the service of humanity has a long history. For instance, his earliest appearance as an actor on the London stage at the Royal Court Theatre in 1958 was in Eleven Men Dead at Hola, a revue critical of British colonial policy in Kenya where some Mau-Mau detainees had been beaten to death by camp officers. The following year, his play The Invention, which condemned Apartheid in South Africa, was performed at the same theatre. It is a mark of exceptional ethical consistency, though not particularly pleasant for the writer himself, that in the l990s he is in political exile, this time protesting against the violation of human rights by a postcolonial military dictatorship in his native Nigeria whose atrocities include the execution of the writer Ken Saro Wiwa.

Even so, Soyinka is evidently the pride of the Nigerian nation: for example, soon after getting the Nobel Prize he was made Knight Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, an honour reserved for exceptional service to the country. Although this gesture of national recognition may have given Soyinka great personal satisfaction, the irony of it would most certainly not have escaped him. A large part of his creative achievement is devoted to the castigation of post-colonial leadership, especially in Nigeria, and General Ibrahim Babangida, the head of state who had him knighted, was himself not so markedly different from Soyinka's usual military strongman. Thus, despite being highly regarded by Nigerian officialdom, Soyinka has always been a thorn in the flesh of successive governments ever since the time in 1965 when, following rigged regional elections, a man allegedly resembling him made a pirate radio broadcast on the national broadcasting network denouncing the results. Acquitted on a legal technicality in this instance, Soyinka was later imprisoned without trial during the 1967–70 Nigerian civil war for his effort to get the supply of arms to both sides in the conflict stopped.