Why I Avoid Drinking Water – 90-Year-Old Wole Soyinka

It’s no longer news that the Nigerian noel prize winning writer Wole Soyinka is now 90 years old but Kogi in this brief interview opened up about some things that are frankly surprising a lot of people.

In this interview with CNN’s Larry Madowo, Prof. Wole Soyinka revealed that he avoids drinking water as much as possible (which is very dangerous for anyone even considering it).

He expressed why he avoids water, and also opened up about how his writing has changed over time, including why he doesn’t have a love for talking computers (like Siri) and where he gets his inspiration from.

Here is what Prof. Wole Soyinka had to say.

During the interview, the interviewer pointed out that Wole Soyinka wasn’t drinking water and sent away the water brought for him saying “I am drinking water, you are drinking wine, and you sent away the water,” to which Wole Soyinka replied:

That’s true. Water just takes up space unnecessarily y’know. It belongs to other commodities. So I’m not keen on water. I avoid water as much as possible.

And wine is a good alternative?

A good robust wine that either sends you to sleep right away or inspires you to work. You never know which way it’ll work.

How has your writing changed over time?

I no longer can write on a piece of paper, except maybe scraps of poetry. I moved from the typewriter, the first one I owned was one of those heavy Remingtons. It belonged to my father. You don’t make an attempt to be up to date with everything because after a while, it gets too much. And the next thing, you have a machine which talks back to you. I said “shut up, I’m the one doing the writing” when it was correcting my writing. What kind of nonsense is that?

So no TikTok for you?

No no no.

Where do you get your best ideas?

Let me put it this way: in isolation. And that isolation includes even being in a plane where nobody is talking to me. My space is total isolation.