Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka was born on 13th July 1934, in a town Ijebu Isara, close to Abeokuta in Western Nigeria (which at that time was a British dominion), as second of six children of Samuel Ayodele Soyinka and Grace Eniola Soyinka. His Father was the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abeokuta. His mother owned a shop in the nearby market and was respected political activist for local community. She was Christian, although among his farther familiars and in vicinity, there were many followers of Yoruba religious tradition. As a little boy Soyinka has had contact with the traditional Yoruba beliefs and Christianity as well, and this atmosphere of religious syncretism, have had a great influence on his yet forming personality. In 1939 when Wole was barely a five years old boy, the World War II broke out. At home of Soyinka’s family, chiefly thanks to his father, at that time there was electricity and radio, so little Wole listened with curiosity to the news from bursting in war flames European continent, at that time almost completely dominated by the person of Adolf Hitler. Hitler very soon became for Wole an embodiment of all evil force and incarnation of devil himself.http://www.facebook.com/studyitout?ref=hl
About year 1940, after attending St. Peters Primary School, Soyinka goes to Abeokuta Grammar School, were he wins several prizes for composition. In 1946 he is accepted by Government College in Ibadan, at that time Nigeria’s most elite secondary school. Upon completion of his studies at college Soyinka moves to Lagos, were he finds employment as a clerk. During this period of time he writes some radio plays and short stories that are broadcasted by Nigerian radio. After finishing his course in 1952, Soyinka begins studies at University College in Ibadan, a school connected with University of London. During this course he studies English literature, Greek, and Western history. In the year 1953-1954, his second and the last at University College in Ibadan before moving to Leeds in England, he works as an editor for “The Eagle”, a non frequent periodical of humorous character. On the second page of this journal, he writes commentaries about academic life, often criticizing stingingly his collegues students, and many times courteously defends affronted and insulted female colleagues. Then he writes his first publication, a short radio broadcast for Nigerian Broadcasting Service National Programme called “Keffi’s Birthday Threat”, which is being broadcasted in July 1954 by Nigerian Radio Times.http://studyitout.com/page/2/