• curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
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    1 day ago

    Well I now have a new badass author to add to my list of books to read

    Edit: Just to note for those who aren’t reading the article, winning the Nobel is not what got him banned. Article with the most relevant (IMO) bits:

    The 91-year-old author, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, said the US consulate asked him to bring in his passport so his visa could be cancelled in person as new unspecified information had come to light.

    Soyinka called the invitation a “rather curious love letter from an embassy” in a news conference held on Tuesday and told organisations hoping to invite him to the US “not to waste their time”.

    The Nobel laureate has previously held permanent residency in the US but renounced it in 2016, tearing up his green card in protest of President Donald Trump’s election.

    Soyinka affirmed on Tuesday that he no longer had his green card – and jokingly added that it had “fallen between the fingers of a pair of scissors and it got cut into a couple of pieces”.

    He said his recent comparison of Trump to Uganda’s dictator - “Idi Amin in white face” - may have contributed to the current situation.

    “When I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment,” Soyinka said, “he’s been behaving like a dictator.”

    Idi Amin was a Ugandan military officer and dictator who ruled the country from 1971 to 1979, infamous for his brutal regime and widespread human rights abuses.

    When asked if he would consider going back to the US, Soyinka said: “How old am I?”

    • ysjet@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      The 91-year-old author, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, said the US consulate asked him to bring in his passport so his visa could be cancelled in person as new unspecified information had come to light.

      Anyone else feel like they were hoping to grab him? Yikes.