Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Literature can address social issues, but it sometimes falls short of making real changes in society.
Wole Soyinka's quote reflects on the dual role of literature in society. While it holds the potential to correct social injustices and raise awareness, there are moments when mere writing fails to effect tangible change. This acknowledgment speaks to the complexity of literature's impact, suggesting that while it is a powerful tool for engagement and reflection, it may not always provide the solutions to the problems it highlights.
Themes
LiteratureSocial ChangeWritingImpactSocial Issues
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the role of arts in activism, one could reference this quote to highlight the limitations of literature.
More from Wole Soyinka
All quotes βTrading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
Wole SoyinkaRead
A war, with its attendant human suffering, must, when that evil is unavoidable, be made to fragment more than buildings: It must shatter the foundations of thought and re-create. Only in this way does every individual share in the cataclysm and understand the purpose of sacrifice.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
Wole SoyinkaRead
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Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings." "I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.
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Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing.
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There were epochs in the history of humanity in which the writer was a sacred person. He wrote the sacred books, universal books, the codes, the epic, the oracles. Sentences inscribed on the walls of the crypts; examples in the portals of the temples. But in those times the writer was not an individual alone; he was the people.
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I have been attacked in Turkey more for my interviews than for my books. Political polemicists and columnists do not read novels there.
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She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.
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Literature is an investment of genius which pays dividends to all subsequent times.
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