Release date
Nigeria’s Nobel Prize in Literature winner Wole Soyinka says the United States has revoked his nonimmigrant visa issued last year.
Speaking to reporters in Lagos on Tuesday, the 91-year-old writer said he received what he jokingly described as a “pretty weird love letter” from the U.S. Consulate General in Nigeria informing him of the cancellation.
The Oct. 23 letter cites a U.S. Department of State regulation that allows nonimmigrant visas to be “revoked at any time.”
Soyinka said the consulate summoned him for an interview to re-evaluate his visa earlier this year. The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria declined to comment on the move.
If the author wants to visit the United States, he would need to reapply for a visa, but this destination doesn’t seem to be at the top of his travel list.
“I want to assure the consulate that we are very happy with the cancellation of the visa,” he told a news conference.
Soyinka is the first black author to win the award. nobel prize for literature A prolific writer, he is primarily known for his plays, including his 1959 anti-colonial work The Lion and the Jewel.
vocal trump critic
He is also a passionate human rights and social justice activist, having spent two years in prison for opposing Nigeria’s civil war in the late 1960s.
In recent years, Soyinka He is a vocal critic of US President Donald Trump.
The author was previously a permanent resident of the United States. However, after Trump was first elected president in 2016, he revoked his green card.
He recently compared Donald Trump to Idi Amin, the brutal dictator who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and was known as the “Butcher of Uganda.”
Most estimates say that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were killed under Amin’s brutal regime.
Soyinka speculated that these comments may have contributed to the cancellation of her visa.
“Idi Amin was an internationally renowned politician, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought he was complimenting him,” Soyinka said sarcastically. “He’s acting like a dictator.”
The playwright holds regular teaching positions at prestigious Ivy League universities in America, including: harvard university and yale university In the past few decades.
He told groups hoping to be invited to the United States on Tuesday to “don’t waste your time.”
“I don’t have a visa. I’m obviously banned from the United States. If you want to see me, you know where to find me.”