Poetry
Enclave set to honor Femi Osofisan with Poetry Festival
The Poetry Enclave, Ibadan has set aside 5th
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.
