The only Nigerian and the first black African to win a Nobel Prize in Literature Prof. Wole Soyinka has been captured in a laid back interview in which he talks about his favourite drink that drives him to the best outcomes.

Clearly, it is not water as he sat down for a conversation with the CNN’s African Voices host, Larry Madowo, a Kenyan. The revelation happened in a living room setting at the Nobel laureate Abeokuta hometown in Ogun State.

ALSO READ: Wole Soyinka strikes 88 in fine fettle

From the 90 seconds snippet that Mr Madowo’s X profile captured, a question was asked at the beginning about how the author quenches his thirst for creativity. The interviewer was spotted with a glass of water pitched on a side stool beside him, but across Prof. Soyinka’s left hand was a stemware with a yellow-ish liquid content.

I am drinking water. You are drinking wine and you sent the water away, the African Voices host probed. It was obviously a reference to what had happened behind the scene, which the shortened clip wouldn’t show and he had picked up on that.

To answer the query was the admittance by the professor confirming that water just takes up space in the body, which is why he tries to avoid taking it as much as possible. As an alternative to water, he prefers good robust wine that either sends you to sleep right away or inspires you to work.

With wine, there is suspense, as Prof. Soyinka recalled during the chat. You never know which way it will work, he adds. A lifetime of exceptional work as global literary icon and lecturer most likely led the CNN staff member to meet with him in Abeokuta.

Back on the 10^th of December 1986, the Egba kingdom native Soyinka, now 90 years old was giving a banquet speech in Stockholm, Sweden to mark his exceptional feat of being the only black African or Nigerian to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. A portion of his utterance while dissecting the personality of the Yorùbá god Sango perhaps foreshadows a growing alcohol thirst.

The speech 38 years ago partly says, while the local acqua-vitae might help to infuse some warmth into his tropical joints, we do know that he tends to stick to his favourite palm wine. A journey back to 2024 with Larry Madowo in a living room with the Kongi’s Harvest (1965) playwright maybe shows the remembrance of wine in his speech was not a coincidence.

So many changes to publishing have been recorded since Wole Soyinka first won a Nobel Prize. All is being driven by further technological advancements which has birthed Artificial Intelligence algorithms that offer predictive assistance to users.

I no longer can write on a piece of paper except maybe scraps of poetry. I moved from the typewriter. The first one I owned, one of those heavy Remington belonged to my father. You don’t make an attempt to be up to date with everything because after a while, it gets too much. And the next thing you have a machine which talks back to you. I said ‘shut up’ – I am the one doing the writing.

I asked the great Wole Soyinka how he’s still so strong at 90.

Wine is the answer, my friends. “Water just takes up space,” he told me 😂 pic.twitter.com/2V4kMuNdWI

— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) September 19, 2024

A slight mishap involving the professor towards the tail end of June 2019 happened onboard a plane. It was alleged that he wrongfully took another passenger’s seat by the window and the rightful occupant asked that he give it up.

It was when social media users were still growing into the tool and no effort was spared in blowing it out of proportion. Live in the interview with the African Voices interviewer, Prof. Soyinka brought it to attention that one of the places he gets his best ideas is when on the plane and in isolation where nobody is talking to me.

ALSO READ: Heading to 1997 and back to see Fela Kuti hold his last big spliff

Meiza Nigeria