The Nobel Laureate,
described the icon in a statement as” down-to-earth kind who felt her subjects
keenly, “a philosopher queen without the aloofness” and one of her poems,
“AFRICA” as more than a mere literary metaphor and reference point. It went
beyond race identification. To obtain a glimmering of what the continent meant
to her, one would have to think in terms of a mystic nostalgia. That could be
because she was so markedly black – regal both in bearing and pronouncements,
she made one
feel that, in some distant time past, she had been a queen – a
philosopher queen – over some part of the black continent.”
Soyinka revealed he met her once over lunch, “and Queen Angelou
tightened her sash like a market mamma, mobilised emergency forces, and
personally led the charge to beat down the doors of a lethargic – and/or
ambiguous – US administration during the Sanni Abacha murderous dictatorship.
She kept her finger on the nation’s pulse throughout a people’s travails”.
Revelling in memory’s lane, Soyinka said he had “learnt a lot at
an American university where he had gone to lecture about her mutual admiration
for his works and how she had nominated him for a literary prize”.
Angelou, he said, “was later to confirm the details to him after
they finally met.”
He went ahead to reveal that she had nominated him for a
literary prize which unfortunately, a german carted off with instead. Having
she tears at his loss, she made a quote certain he’d win something bigger.
He was honoured with the Nobel Prize a year after.”
Sorry papa noble...
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