His novels, like his plays, often adopt symbolic and moral methods to reflect the real world and the writer's ideals. The first novel The Interpreter (1965) mainly describes a group of intellectuals, engineers, journalists, artists, teachers and lawyers. Facing the social reality of Nigeria, they are confused when choosing the two lifestyles of historical tradition and modern culture, and at the same time, they also expose the unreasonable phenomena in reality. The second novel, days of darkness (1973), takes the Nigerian civil war in 1960s as the background, compares the evil of money and power with the experience of ordinary people, and expresses the writer's social views and ideals. The other two autobiographical novels are: The Dead: A Documentary in Prison (1972), which mainly recalls his life in prison and some new ideas formed in prison; Akai's childhood (198 1) reproduces the writer's early life. Because of its mature and excellent prose narrative skills, it was rated as one of the best books in 1982 by the New York Times Book Review Supplement.
His poetry creation is also quite noticeable. As early as the early 1950s, when he was studying at ibadan University, he published passionate poems in magazines. 1967, he wrote the poem Edna and others, expressing his complex feelings and lyrical reflections on some things under the impact of reality. Poetry anthology in prison (1969) was written on papyrus when he was imprisoned. After publication, it was very popular with readers. It mainly describes his experiences and feelings after losing his freedom and expresses his yearning for freedom and light. 1972, he added several poems on this basis, and collected and published them again under the name of "Shuttle in the crypt". The long poem Abibi Man (1976) is a eulogy written to celebrate Mozambique's declaration of war on white-dominated Rhodesia. These poetic images are full of philosophy and lofty sense of moral mission.
His literary monograph Myth, Literature and the African World (1975) fully reflects his own unique understanding and literary views on literature and drama.
Soyinka put his faith into practice with amazing literary achievements. In his view, the role of an African artist is to "record the experience and morality of his society and act as a spokesperson for the vision of his times". So he succeeded in making people outside Africa look at Africans and African events from an African perspective.