Africa is the second largest continent covering about one-fifth of the total land surface of Earth. The continent is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and on the south by the mingling waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The land is home to more than 3000 languages. The continent consists of 54 countries.
Wole Soyinka was a Nigerian playwright and political activist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He belonged to an African tribe, Yoruba. Wole Soyinka attended Government College and University College in Ibadan before graduating in 1958 with a degree in English from the University of Leeds in England. His best works exhibit humour and fine poetic style along with irony and satire.
Yoruba is one of the three largest ethnic groups of Nigeria, which is concentrated in the southwestern part of the country. Most Yoruba men are farmers, growing yams, corn, millet, plantains, peanuts, beans, and peas as well as cocoa. Others are traders or craftsmen. Women do little farm work but control much of the complex market system as their status depends more on their own position in the marketplace than on their husbands’ status. The traditional Yoruba religion has an elaborate hierarchy of deities, including a supreme creator and around 400 lesser gods and spirits, most of whom are associated with their own cults and priests.