“Curious love letter”: Wole Soyinka responds after US cancels visa

Nigerian novelist, poet, and playwright, and the first African author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Wole Soyinka, recently had his US visa revoked, becoming another in the ever-growing list of  victims of the second Trump administration's wave of anti-immigrant, anti-dissident measures.

Soyinka spoke on the issue at an event in Lagos on October 23, reading from a notice from the local US consulate asking for his passport for "physical cancellation", humorously calling it "a rather curious love letter". Long a vocal critic of Trump and of authoritarian regimes at large—notably destroying his US green card in 2017 during the first Trump administration—he responded to the situation with grace, mentioning "I like people who have a sense of humour, and this is one of the most humorous sentences or requests I've had in all my life."

Wole Soyinka was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". While many of his works are set in Nigeria and depict the country's culture, history, and political struggles, often through the lives of its people, a notable number reflect wider African history and politics, colonial impacts, struggles for identity and independence, and more.

Soyinka's work has often directly centered political activism and staunch opposition to censorship and authoritarianism, such as with his 1984 play 'A Play of Giants', a scathing critical commentary on African dictators and particularly Idi Amin. Predictably then, he has taken his visa cancellation in stride, stating at the aforementioned event, per Al Jazeera, "I want to assure the consulate, the Americans here, that I am very content with the revocation of my visa," but noted that it would prevent him from attending literary and cultural events in the US.

For Soyinka, a globally celebrated author and activist, this is no doubt a minor inconvenience at best while also being further proof of the very nature of Donald Trump and his administrations he has long criticised. For the United States, however, it is the loss of the presence of a tremendous literary voice and one of the great living writers of our time.