In the Che Guevara Room of the Casa de las Américas cultural institution, the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, presented the decoration that the Council of State grants to citizens and groups for their contribution to the enrichment and defense of the genuine culture of Latin America and the Caribbean, and its integration.

In thanking the recognition, Soyinka said he feels that this Caribbean nation is also his home, and highlighted the opportunity to meet again with the Cubans.

After the ceremony, President Díaz-Canel held a meeting with Soyinka, in which he thanked him for his visit at such a complex time for Cuba, and referred to the strong ties that unite this country and Africa.

In that meeting, the head of State said that “this is the visit of a brother who has always fought for the most just causes.”

The Nigerian intellectual pointed out, for his part, that the ties of this Caribbean nation with Africa transcend the merely cultural and are present in the common struggle for the liberation of peoples.

Soyinka participated in the International Conference for the 30th anniversary of the UNESCO program “The route of enslaved people”, held in this capital from August 21 to 23.

The Nobel Prize winner in Literature also received the Dulce María Loynaz international prize in Havana the day before, awarded by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba.

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, (Nigeria, 1934), known as Wole Soyinka, has actively participated in the political life of his country, a cause that cost him two years of imprisonment and a death sentence.

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