"What if V. S. Naipaul were a happy man? What if V. S. Pritchett had loved his parents? What if Vladimir Nabokov had grown up in a small town in western Nigeria and decided that politics were not unworthy of him? I do not take or drop these names in vain. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian novelist, playwright, critic, and professor of comparative literature, belongs in their company."
-John Leonard, The New York Times

"[Soyinka is] a master of language, and [is committed] as a dramatist and writer of poetry and prose to problems of general and deep significance for man."
-Lars Gyllensten, from his presentation speech awarding Wole Soyinka the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986

"A brilliant imagist who uses poetry and drama to convey his inquisitiveness, frustration, and sense of wonder."
-Newsweek

"If the spirit of African democracy has a voice and a face, they belong to Wole Soyinka."
-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times