Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka GCON (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty-five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two translated works and many articles and short stories for many newspapers and periodicals. He is widely regarded as one of Africa's greatest writers and one of the world's most important dramatists. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence".

Born into an Anglican Yoruba family in Aké, Abeokuta, Soyinka had a preparatory education at Government College, Ibadan and proceeded to the University College Ibadan. During his education, he co-founded the Pyrate Confraternity. Soyinka left Nigeria for England to study at the University of Leeds. During that period, he was the editor of the university's magazine, The Eagle, before becoming a full-time author in the 1950s. In the UK, he started writing short stories and making records for the BBC Lecture series. He wrote many plays which were performed on radios and in theatres in Nigeria and the UK, especially the Royal Court Theatre.

He has been married to his third wife Folake Doherty since 1989. Since 1 September 2022, Soyinka has held the position of Arts Professor of Theatre at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Many of Soyinka's novels and plays are set in Nigeria, reflecting the country’s history, culture, and political struggles. Alongside these works, he produced a wide range of satirical writings that reached a broad audience and enjoyed considerable popularity. He is also an accomplished poet, with numerous individual poems and several published collections to his name. He achieved successes with his plays including The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Lion and the Jewel (1958), and The Invention, which was one of his early plays to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka wrote a number of other works, including The Interpreters (1965), Season of Anomy (1973), Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, and Harmattan Haze on an African Spring. In July 2024, Bola Tinubu renamed the National Arts Theatre after Soyinka during his 90th birthday.

Soyinka is the son of Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, an Anglican minister and headmaster at St Peter's Primary School, who was a member of the royal family of the town of Isara-Remo, and Grace Soyinka (née Jenkins-Harrison), a shopkeeper and activist, who was a member of the Ransome-Kuti family. He was born in Ake, Abeokuta, where he was raised as a Christian. He was born on 13 July 1934, and was the second of seven children: Atinuke Aina, Femi, Yeside, Omofolabo Ajayi, and Kayode. His sister Folasade died as an infant.

Soyinka was educated at St. Peters Primary School, where his father was the headmaster, from 1940 to 1946. He had his secondary education at Abeokuta Grammar School and university preparatory studies at Government College, Ibadan from 1946 to 1951. He was admitted into the University College Ibadan, where he studied English literature, Greek, and Western history from 1952 to 1954. During his final years in the university, he wrote Keffi's Birthday Treat, a short radio play, for the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, which was broadcast in July 1954. Along with his classmates including Olumuyiwa Awẹ, Ralph Opara, Aig-Imoukhuede, and Pius Olegbe, Soyinka founded the National Association of Seadogs, the first confraternity in Nigeria.

Soyinka relocated from Nigeria to England and continued his studies in English literature at University of Leeds from 1954 to 1957 under the supervision of G. Wilson Knight, graduating in 1958. At Leeds, he served as the editor of the university's satirical magazine, The Eagle, in which he wrote a column on academic life and often criticised his university peers. In August 1955, he had started recording for BBC Lecture. He also wrote many short stories, which in 1957, he won the annual oratory competition run by the University.

Soyinka remained in Leeds to complete his Master's degree. He wrote and published his first play The Swamp Dwellers in 1958. A year later, he published another play The Lion and the Jewel. The comedy play attracted great interest from members of London's Royal Court Theatre. Soyinka moved to London and worked as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre. During that period, his two plays were performed in Ibadan, Nigeria and explored the difficult relationship between progress and tradition in Nigeria. In 1957, his play The Invention was produced at the Royal Court Theatre, and was his first work to achieve that fame. He wrote poems, including "The Immigrant" and "My Next Door Neighbour", which appeared in Black Orpheus. Soyinka returned to Nigeria after receiving a Rockefeller Research Fellowship for his research on African theatre. In November 1959, he replaced Janheinz Jahn as the co-editor of Black Orpheus as well as produced The Trials of Brother Jero, which premiered in the Mellanby Hall residence of University College Ibadan, in April 1960. In the same year, his work A Dance of The Forest, became the official play for the Nigerian Independence Day and on 1 October 1960, it premiered in Lagos.