Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has revealed that the United States has revoked his entry visa, describing the decision as both unexpected and bewildering.

Prof. Soyinka disclosed this on Tuesday during a meeting with journalists at Kongi’s Harvest Gallery, Freedom Park, Lagos Island.

He said he received official notification from the U.S. Consulate in Lagos in a letter dated 23 October 2025.

“It is necessary for me to hold this conference so that people in the United States expecting me for one event or another do not waste their time,” he said. “I have no visa; I am obviously banned from the United States. If you want to see me, you know where to find me.”

The playwright expressed surprise at the revocation, saying he was unaware of any wrongdoing that could have prompted it. He suggested that the move might be linked to his long-standing criticism of former U.S. President Donald Trump and his policies.

Prof. Soyinka, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, has had a long and distinguished association with the United States, holding teaching appointments at several Ivy League universities since the mid-1990s. However, his relationship with the U.S. government has not always been smooth.

In December 2016, the Nigerian author publicly tore up his U.S. green card in protest at Mr. Trump’s victory in that year’s presidential election. Speaking to South Africa’s eNCA television at the time, he said:

“I’ve done it,” he confirmed when asked if he had followed through on his earlier vow to leave the United States if Trump triumphed. “When I was ready, when I’d finished, I negotiated my departure.”

He said he felt deeply uneasy about the tone of Mr. Trump’s campaign and the political shift it represented, contrasting it with the symbolic progress made during the presidency of Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan.

“We on the African continent could boast that we had a contemporary descendant ruling the United States,” Soyinka said in 2016. “Suddenly, somebody is making speeches which are meant to reverse those gains.”

In September 2025, Soyinka declined an invitation from the U.S. Consulate for a visa re-interview, citing the date’s historical significance as the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The Nobel Laureate said he has now accepted that his relationship with the U.S. may have reached an end.

“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,” he told reporters, adding that he had no intention of appealing the decision.