Lifestyle
Nigerian Nobel winner Wole Soyinka says U.S. revoked his visa after Trump criticism
Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka speaks to The Associated Press during an interview at freedom park in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2021.
Sunday Alamba/AP
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Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said on Tuesday that his non-resident visa to enter the United States had been rejected, adding that he believes it may be because he recently criticized President Donald Trump.
The Nigerian author, 91, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, becoming the first African to do so.
Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Soyinka said he believed it had little to do with him and was instead a product of the United States’ immigration policies. He said he was told to reapply if he wished to enter again.
“It’s not about me, I’m not really interested in going back to the United States,” he said. “But a principle is involved. Human beings deserve to be treated decently wherever they are.”
Soyinka, who has taught in the U.S. and previously held a green card, joked on 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 over 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 its revocation, but does not describe what that information was.
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 until 1979.
He jokingly referred to his rejection as a “love letter” and said that while he did not blame the officials, he would not be applying for another visa.
“I have no visa. I am banned, obviously, from the United States, and if you want to see me, you know where to find me.”
The U.S. Consulate in Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos, directed all questions to the State Department in Washington, D.C. Through a spokesperson, it said that because under US law visa records are generally confidential, they would not discuss the specifics of this case while stressing that “visas are a privilege, not a right” and that “visas may be revoked at any time, at the discretion of the U.S. government, whenever circumstances warrant.”
The American Library Association’s list of the most frequently challenged books of 2025 includes Sold by Patricia McCormick, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir.
American Library Association
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American Library Association
The American Library Association has released its annual list of the most commonly challenged books at libraries across the United States.
According to the ALA, the 11 most frequently targeted books include several tied titles. They are:
1. Sold by Patricia McCormick
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
4. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
5. (tie) Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
8. (tie) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. (tie) Identical by Ellen Hopkins
8. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green
8. (tie) Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Many of these individual titles also appear on a 2024-25 report issued last October by PEN America, a separate group dedicated to free expression, which looked at book challenges and bans specifically within public schools.
The ALA says that it documented 4,235 unique titles being challenged in 2025 – the second-highest year on record for library challenges. (The highest ever was in 2023, with 4,240 challenges documented – only five more than in this most recent year.)
According to the ALA, 40% of the materials challenged in 2025 were representations of LGBTQ+ people and those of people of color.
In all, the ALA documented 713 attempts across the United States in 2025 to censor library materials and services; 487 of those challenges targeted books.
According to the ALA, 92% of all book challenges to libraries came from “pressure groups,” government officials and local decision makers. While 20.8% came from pressure groups such as Moms for Liberty (as the ALA cited in an email to NPR), 70.9% of challenges originated with government officials and other “decision makers,” such as local board officials or administrators.
In a more detailed breakdown, the ALA notes that 31% of challenges came from elected government officials and and 40% from board members or administrators. In its full report, the ALA states that only 2.7% of such challenges originated with parents, and 1.4% with individual library users.
Fifty-one percent of challenges were attempted at public libraries, and 37% involved school libraries. The remaining challenges of 2025 targeted school curriculums and higher education.
The ALA defines a book “ban” as the removal of materials, including books, from a library. A “challenge,” in this organization’s definition, is an attempt to have a library resource removed, or access to it restricted.
The ALA is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to American libraries and librarians.
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