Poetry Enclave set to honor Femi Osofisan with Poetry Festival

Poetry Enclave set to honor Femi Osofisan with Poetry Festival

 The Poetry Enclave, Ibadan has set aside 5^th of September, 2018, to honor Prof. Femi Osofisan popularly known as Okinba Launko, a Nigerian poet, one of Africa’s greatest theatre practitioners, novelist and outstanding playwright with a poetry festival tagged “ Femi Osofisan/Okinba Launko Poetry Festival (FOLFEST).

According to POEN President, Mr. Ebika Anthony, the event will take place at the Wole Soyinka Theatre, University of Ibadan. Ibadan by 10am prompt.

The Festival with the theme “ Poetry Against Dictatorship”, a celebration of poetry in honour of Emeritus Prof. Femi Osofisan will feature Poetry Readings/Performance, Music, Dance and the official launching of THE WRITER, NOVEL VISION AND POSSIBLE DREAMS (A Conversation with Okinba  Launko by Ebika Anthony).

The event which promises exciting moments will make a great impact in the city of Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.

Femi Osofisan is one of the foremost dramatists in Africa. Femi Osofisan has had a distinguished career in the academy. He is Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is a Theatre Director, Actor, Critic, Poet, Novelist, Editor and Newspaper Columnist. Osofisan has written and produced more than sixty plays, five volumes of poetry, four novels and several collections of essays. Osofisan has won several other awards, including 1st Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service [WNBS] Prize for Independence Anniversary Essay, the first Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Literature award in 1983 for Morountodun and Other Plays and later for Drama with Yungba-Yungba and the Dance Contest in 1993. Minted Coins, a collection of poetry written under the pseudonym Okinba Launko, won the ANA Poetry Prize and the Regional Commonwealth Poetry Award for First Collection in 1987. In 2000, he was short-listed for the prestigious Neustadt Prize in the USA. He has been honoured with Officier de l’Ordre Nationale de Mérite, Rép. de France (1999); Nigerian National Order of Merit in the Humanities [NNOM] (2004); Fonlon-Nichols Prize for Literature and the Struggle for Human Rights (2006); and Fellow, Nigerian Academy of the Arts [FNAL] (2006). Osofisan was also a Drama Consultant to the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture (Festac ’77), the Cultural Olympiad, 1996 Olympic Games, Atlanta, and Movement for Mass Mobilization, Social and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), Abuja, Nigeria (1989). He was also the President of ANA (1988-1990) and PEN, Nigeria (2004-2010), and one time General Manager and Chief Executive of the National Theatre, Lagos, Nigeria. Osofisan’s plays have been performed in many countries, where he has also held teaching or research fellowships, including Japan, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Lesotho, China, USA, Canada, UK, France, South Africa; his plays are among the most produced in Nigeria. Femi Osofisan is a founding member and Literary Editor of the first Editorial Board of The Guardian, Lagos (1983-84); Founder and Artistic Director, Kakaun Sela Kompani (1979) and CentreSTAGE-Africa [the Centre for Studies in Theatre and Alternative Genres of Expression in Africa, a non-governmental trusteeship organisation]; and Founder and Editor of Opon Ifa, a poetry chap-book (1974), which later became Opon Ifa Review, a quarterly journal of the arts, primarily for creative writing.