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?”
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.
Don’t read his poetry. Listen to him read it. He has a wonderful voice.
Where might one be able to do this? Does he sell recordings somewhere?
I always just find them on youtube. Searching for them is a bit cluttered rough now with this news, but this one is probably my favorite.
Oof, yeah that’s one sexy voice. Wonder if he’s narrated any of his books.
Solid recommendations always accepted - will do!
Here’s an idea: grant Trump the Nobel Peace Prize he so desperately wants and ban him from the country too.
Give him a firm list of things that, if accomplished, will guarantee him the Nobel. Put all of the progressive policy asks on the list. Let him grapple with that one.
I’m pretty sure just being a good, respectful president working for true world peace would get him there. But he’s incapable of that: the man is rotten to the core.
The longer this goes on, the more I think that he isn’t even really aware of most of the things that are happening. The dementia concerns mixed with how weird his public talking points are just reinforce that. It’s like he’s got contacts both internal and external that are feeding him disinformation that he’s not cognitively capable of sorting out from reality.
He seems to flip flop on important issues daily based on who the last person he spoke with was - not just soft promises he made to that person, but hard policy adjustments from day to day. Ukraine and Russia are examples of this; one day, he seems like he’s sucking Putin’s dick, the next day he’s talking about how awful he is.
Other people in his administration seem very much to be the ones in charge some portion of the time, and that could just be them failing to put the masks on before public appearances.
There was also a weird sound bite during one of the national guard deployment discussions, where he was questioned about the supposed riots he was sending them to quell, and he said something to the effect of, “Is what I’m seeing on TV different from what’s happening in reality?” - made me seriously wonder if he’s being shown footage of some riot somewhere and told that it’s a US state rioting against ICE.
I don’t know, the whole situation is really weird. I’m fully on board with believing he’s just evil, and I think at his core, he is, but I also think he’s being manipulated. Maybe it’s just because I’d find this easier to cope with in some minute way if it was a case of elder abuse in the White House, rather than… whatever is actually happening right now.
he said something to the effect of, “Is what I’m seeing on TV different from what’s happening in reality?” - made me seriously wonder if he’s being shown footage of some riot somewhere and told that it’s a US state rioting against ICE.
I thought it was confirmed that the reason he wanted to send military was because Fox News said there were riots and showing video from 2020.
So, yeah, Fox News is lying and Trump, like all his supporters, is believing it.
being a good, respectful president working for true world peace would get him there
That would be a first in a number of ways…
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Do you think he fucking cares? He just wants the gold shiny so he can be like Obama.
