Distinguished African Dramatist, Theatre Practitioner and Culture Scholar, BABAFEMI ADEYEMI OSOFISAN, will be seventy (70) years old in June 2016. As part of the events marking his birthday, an international conference is being planned to celebrate his achievements and contributions especially to World Theatre and scholarship.

Femi Osofisan has had a distinguished career in the academy. He is Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Ibadan and Distinguished Professor, Kwara State University, 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.

Since winning the 1st Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service [WNBS] Prize for Independence Anniversary Essay in 1965 with ‘Five Years Ago’, Osofisan has won several other awards, including 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.

•Femi Osofisan

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 Mobilisation, 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.

To reflect the interdisciplinary contributions of Femi Osofisan to the academy, and his use of African performance culture to expose societal ills through drama, the conference is inviting papers by scholars exploring the work of Osofisan and drama, music, dance, gender issues, poetry and literature from a range of perspectives.