Nobel-winning author says his US visa was revoked after attack on Trump
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said Tuesday that his nonresident visa to enter the United States had been rejected, adding that he believes it could be because he recently criticized U.S. President Donald Trump.
The 91-year-old Nigerian author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, becoming the first African to do so.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Soyinka said he believed it had little to do with him and was rather a product of US immigration policies.
He said he was told to reapply if he wanted to enter again.
“It’s not about me, I’m not really interested in returning to the United States,” he said. “But there is a principle at stake. Human beings deserve to be treated decently wherever they are.”
via News
Soyinka, who taught in the United States and previously had a green card, joked Tuesday that his green card “had an accident” eight years ago and “fell between a pair of scissors.”
In 2017, he destroyed his green card in protest of President Trump’s first inauguration.
The letter he received informing him of his visa revocation cites “additional information became available after the visa was issued” as the reason for his revocation, but does not describe what that information was.
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Soyinka believes it may be because he recently referred to Trump as a “white version of Idi Amin,” a reference to the dictator who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979.
The U.S. consulate in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, directed all questions to the State Department’s press office in Washington, D.C., which did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
Soyinka jokingly referred to it as a “love letter” and said that while he did not blame officials, he would not apply for another visa. “I don’t have a visa. Obviously, I’m banned from the United States, and if you want to see me, you know where to find me.”