Femi Osofisan (Writer)

 is the author of fifty plays, many of which have been performed in different countries around the world. One of Africa’s foremost writers, he is also the author of four novels, four collections of poetry and four volumes of essays and a contributor from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s of popular columns in Nigerian newspapers. Dr. Osofisan was born in Erunwon village in the old Western Region of Nigeria and educated at the universities of Ibadan, Dakar, and Paris; he is a professor of drama at the University of Ibadan. Osofisan has extended the entertainment forms of the moonlight tales of the Yoruba, crossing them with contemporary literary forms to forge a theatre that is enchanting, socially relevant and highly popular. His ability to dramatize the local experience while exploring universal themes places him in the ranks of such well-known playwrights as the Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka- with whom he has been frequently compared, the Egyptian Tawfik al-Hakim, and the South African Athol Fugard and Reza de Wet. He wrote and premiered Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels in Nigeria in 1984. In June 2006 Osofisan turned sixty. His achievements as a playwright, director, poet, novelist, and literary and drama critic were celebrated in Nigeria through many activities: productions and readings of his plays, symposia and the launching of a Festschrift in his honour entitled Portraits For An Eagle, edited by Sola Adeyemi.