In 1986, when African writers agreed to boycott the Nobel Prize for the apparent discrimination by the Royal Academy, up until then, no African was regarded good enough for the prize, Soyinka came against the African collective cause and received the honour.
Soyinka may have received a Nobel Prize, but this does not necessarily reflect his social significance as a writer. Even Abdulrazak Gurnah, who received the prize in 2021, claimed he thought it was a prank. Nobody knew him, and he knew he didn’t deserve it.
Ngugi wa Thiong’O, who was named James Ngugi while pursuing Western education, on the other hand, has continually been ignored by the Royal Academy, despite the fact that everyone in the literary world knows he should have won it on merit a long time ago. To put things in perspective, he taught Gurnah years ago and has taught many other greats.
Ngugi’s sin is that he would never succumb to Western ideology, and he has advocated on numerous occasions for African writers, and indeed, writers from the Orient, to develop literature in their native languages rather than enhancing urban languages.