WOle OSyinka conference in ST Lucia - my introduction

Hey people,

here is the text of my introduction.
Wole Soyinka text will be printed soon.

I will post more picture later.




Introduction of Professor Wole Soyinka

Nobel Laureate Week – Derek Walcott lecture
18th January 2010
By Armelle Chatelier

Her Excellency Dame Pearlette Louisy, Governor General of St Lucia
Prime Minister the Hon. Stephenson King
Hon. Ministers: …
Members of the Diplomatic corps
Lady Lewis & family
Sir Dunstan & Lady St Omer

Derek & Sigrid Nama

Wole

You will have noticed that I used only the first names of the two writers
present and recipients of the Nobel Prize,
well because Wole said:
« This prize has such prestige and impact on people’s imagination at all
levels that you become the property of the world».

Well, Yes you are.

In St Lucia we say, “Derek said, or Derek is doing this”, and nobody asks
which Derek. In West Africa when we talk about Wole… everybody knows just who is meant.

It surely takes a lot of work to “make a name” but the ultimate achievement is to become a first name, familiar and close to the
people.

I have 5 minutes to introduce Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka to you. How can I avoid the two difficulties of the exercise – platitude and panegyric?

To do so, I will invoke the spirits of my mother family, Griots from Senegal (a caste of historians, storytellers and musicians) who walk alongside the
great men of West Africa, accompany them, give them the words, keep and transmit their memories.

It is friendship that brings Wole over the seas, to meet his brother in
literature, in theatre, in Nobel recognition: Derek Walcott.
If you meet the man, you meet the country.
Who is Derek Walcott without St Lucia?
and What is St Lucia without Africa ?

Despite the enforced amnesia – Africa is everywhere, in traces, as
reference, in the faces of the people in St Lucia. There is a persistent
memory that fights against the denial: the food, the dances, the music, the
language – they all include, woven in the social fabric, the motherland. The
last Kele (Shango) priest of St Lucia was, till the 90’s, using a West African
language in his ceremony… when he invoked Yorùbá spirits, right here in Fond Assau.

I am invoking the Yorùbá deity Ogun - whom Wole Soyinka regards as kindred and protector spirit - to guide us as we appreciate the special man we have with us tonight.

It is the power of roots and Culture that motivates him to be “raconter”, to
tell and to show in 8 poetry collections, 5 memoirs, 2 novels, 21 plays and
5 collections of essays, the essence of Human Nature.

As Wole says “Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.” And the words on paper put him at great personal risk and eventually led him to jail.

It is the injustice that drives him to identify with the people of Biafra, with the people of Nigeria, with all the oppressed people in the world against military governments here and there, denouncing “the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".

As a writer, he helps us to continue to dream of an Africa of peace, creativity, solidarity, mediation. As a man of action, he gives us courage everywhere.

Wole said “And wherever humanity is involved, that's my constituency”.

Indeed St Lucia with its Ameridian people, African people, European people, Indian people, is a microcosm of the world, a cross section of humanity.

Well to finish - I caution Professor Soyinka:
Be careful ! Dame Pearlette once joked that there must be something in St Lucia’s water for us to have two Nobel Prize winners so stick to the wine you appreciate so much, because after this trip you may receive an other Nobel Prize.