Leeds introduces Soyinka bursary

Dec 19, 2004

The University of Leeds in UK has introduced a scholarship in honour of Wole Soyinka, one of its most prestigious alumni and internationally respected playwrights.

By John Eremu
The University of Leeds in UK has introduced a scholarship in honour of Wole Soyinka, one of its most prestigious alumni and internationally respected playwrights.
The Wole Soyinka Scholarship will support doctoral research study at Leeds’ School of English, commencing in October 2005, for a period of three years, the British Council said in a statement.
Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, gained a Bachelors degree in English from the University of Leeds in 1957, having previously studied in his homeland Nigeria.
“A fearless advocate of democracy and human rights, he has become one of Africa’s most respected playwrights, novelists and thinkers, and has had over 40 works published, which draw on both his Nigerian background and Western culture. The author of the BBC’s Reith Lectures in 2004, he is Emeritus Woodruff Professor of Arts at Emory University, Atlanta, and received an honourary Doctorate of Literature from the University of Leeds in 1973,” the university said in a statement.
The scholarship covers annual tuition fees for three years of study at £8,318 (sh28m) for international students for the 2005/06 session in addition to an annual maintenance grant of £7000 (sh23.6m), the statement said.
The applicants must be citizens of any African nation, possess a First Class bachelors degree in English or a related discipline and a distinctive level of achievement at Masters level or equivalent. More information on the scholarships can be got from the British Council offices in Kampala or from Louise Ward Postgraduate Officer in the School of English at e-mail address l.e.ward@leeds.ac.uk or from their website at: http://scholarships.leeds.ac.uk or from the School of English’s webpages http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/
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