Soyinka

The United States has revoked the visa of Nigerian author and playwright Wole Soyinka, who became the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.

Speaking at Kongi’s Harvest Gallery in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka read aloud from a notice sent on October 23 from the local US consulate, asking him to arrive with his passport so that his visa could be nullified.

The author called it, with characteristic humour, a “rather curious love letter” to receive.

“We request you bring your visa to the US Consulate General Lagos for physical cancellation. To schedule an appointment, please email — et cetera, et cetera — in advance of the appointment,” Soyinka recited, skimming the letter.

Closing his laptop, the author joked with the audience that he did not have time to fulfil its request.

“I like people who have a sense of humour, and this is one of the most humorous sentences or requests I’ve had in all my life,” Soyinka said.

“Would any of you like to volunteer in my place? Take the passport for me? I’m a little bit busy and rushed.”

Soyinka’s visa was issued last year, under US President Joe Biden. But in the intervening time, a new president has taken office: Donald Trump.

Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has overseen a crackdown on immigration, and his administration has removed visas and green cards from individuals whom it sees as out of step with the Republican president’s policies.

At Tuesday’s event, Soyinka struck a bemused tone, though he indicated the visa revocation would prevent him from visiting the US for literary and cultural events.

“I want to assure the consulate, the Americans here, that I am very content with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka said.

He also quipped about his past experiences writing about the Ugandan military leader Idi Amin. “Maybe it’s about time also to write a play about Donald Trump,” he said.

Nobel Prize winners in the crosshairs

Soyinka is a towering figure in African literature, with a career that spans genres, from journalism to poetry to translation.

He is the author of several novels, including Season of Anomy and Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, as well as numerous short stories.

The 91-year-old author has also championed the fight against censorship. “Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth,” he wrote.

He has lectured on the subject in New York City for PEN America, a free speech nonprofit. As recently as 2021, he returned to the US to present scholar and former colleague Henry Louis Gates Jr with the nonprofit’s Literary Service Award.

But Soyinka is not the first Nobel winner to see his US visa stripped away in the wake of Trump’s return to office, despite the US president’s own ambitions of earning the international prize.

Oscar Arias, a former president of Costa Rica and the winner of the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize, also found his visa cancelled in April.

Arias was previously honoured by the Nobel Committee for his efforts to end armed conflicts in Central American countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

While the letter Arias received from the US government gave no reason for his visa’s cancellation, the former president told NPR’s Morning Edition radio show that officials indicated it was because of his ties to China.

“During my second administration from 2006 to 2010, I established diplomatic relations with China, and that’s because it has the second-largest economy in the world,” Arias explained.

But, Arias added, he could not rule out the possibility that there were other reasons for his visa’s removal.

“I have to imagine that my criticism of President Trump might have played a role,” Arias told NPR. “The president has a personality that is not open to criticism or disagreements.”

Soyinka likewise has a reputation for being outspoken, both about domestic politics in his native Nigeria and international affairs.

He has, for example, denounced Trump on multiple occasions, including for the “brutal, cruel and often unbelievable treatment being meted out to strangers, immigrants”.

In 2017, he confirmed to the magazine The Atlantic that he had destroyed his US green card — his permanent residency permit — to protest Trump’s first election in 2016.

“As long as Trump is in charge, if I absolutely have to visit the United States, I prefer to go in the queue for a regular visa with others,” he told the magazine.

The point was, he explained, to show that he was “no longer part of the society, not even as a resident”.

In Tuesday’s remarks, Soyinka reaffirmed that he no longer had his green card. “Unfortunately, when I was looking at my green card, it fell between the fingers of a pair of scissors, and it got cut into a couple of pieces,” he said, flashing his tongue-in-cheek humour.

He also emphasised he continues to have close friends in the US, and that the local consulate staff has consistently treated him courteously.

His work had long caused him to face persecution in Nigeria — though, famously, during a stint in solitary confinement, he continued to write using toilet paper — and eventually, in the 1990s, he sought refuge in the US.

During his time in North America, he took up teaching posts at prestigious universities like Harvard, Yale and Emory.

Targeting ‘hostile attitudes’

The Trump administration, however, has pledged to revoke visas from individuals it deems to be a threat to its national security and foreign policy interests.

In June, Trump issued a proclamation calling on his government tighten immigration procedures, in an effort to ensure that visa-holders “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles”.

What qualifies as a “hostile attitude” towards US culture is unclear. Human rights advocates have noted that such broad language could be used as a smokescreen to crack down on dissent.

Free speech, after all, is protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution and is considered a foundational principle in the country, protecting individual expression from government shackles.

After Arias was stripped of his visa, the Economists for Peace and Security, a United Nations-accredited nonprofit, was among those to express outrage.

“This action, taken without explanation, raises serious concerns about the treatment of a globally respected elder statesman who has dedicated his life to peace, democracy, and diplomacy,” the nonprofit wrote in its statement.

“Disagreements on foreign policy or political perspective should not lead to punitive measures against individuals who have made significant contributions to international peace and stability.”

International students, commenters on social media, and acting government officials have also faced backlash for expressing their opinions and having unfavourable foreign ties.

Earlier this month, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino voiced concern that members of his government had seen their visas cancelled over their diplomatic ties to China.

And in September, while visiting New York City, Colombian President Gustavo Petro saw his visa yanked within hours of giving a critical speech to the United Nations and participating in a protest against Israel’s war in Gaza.

The US Department of State subsequently called Petro’s actions “reckless and incendiary”.

Separately, the State Department announced on October 14 that six foreign nationals would see their visas annulled for criticising the assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a close associate of Trump.

Soyinka questioned Trump’s stated motives for cancelling so many visas at Tuesday’s literary event in Lagos, asking if they really made a difference for US national security.

“Governments have a way of papering things for their own survival,” he said.

“I want people to understand that the revocation of one visa, 10 visas, a thousand visas will not affect the national interests of any astute leader.”