His homeland was then still a British dependency. His father was headmaster of an Anglican primary school, and his mother, whom he nicknamed “Wild Christian,” was a shop owner and trader. In 1981, Soyinka published Aké, a memoir about his youth, described in The New York Times as “a classic of childhood memoirs wherever and whenever produced.”Early on, Soyinka became involved in and inspired by both Nigeria’s fight for independence and the revolt in which his mother was a leading activist against a tax on women. He described the tax revolt as “the earliest event I remember in which I was really caught up in a wave of activism and understood the principles involved. Young as I was, it all took place around me, discussions took place around me, and I knew what forces were involved. But even before [the tax revolt], I’d listened to elders talking, and I used to read the newspapers on my father’s desk. This was a period of anticolonial fervor, so the entire anticolonial training was something I imbibed quite early, even before the women’s movement.”After studying Greek, English, and History at Ibadan University in Nigeria from 1952 to 1954, Soyinka traveled to England to study English Literature at Leeds University.
