Femi Osofisan


Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan, known as Femi Osofisan or F.O., is a Nigerian writer noted for his critique of societal problems and his use of African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his novels.
A frequent theme that his novels explore is the conflict between good and evil. He is in fact a didactic writer whose works seek to correct his decadent society. He has written poetry under the pseudonym Okinba Launko.

Education and career

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan was born in the village of Erunwon, Ogun State, Nigeria, on June 16, 1946 to Ebenezer Olatokunbo Osofisan, a school teacher, lay reader and church organist, and Phoebe Olufunke Osofisan, a schoolteacher. His last name, Òsófisan, signifies that his paternal ancestors were artists and artisans who worshipped the god of beauty and ornaments, Oso. Osofisan attended primary school at Ife and secondary school at Government College, Ibadan.
He then attended the University of Ibadan, majoring in French and as part of his degree course studying at the University of Dakar for a year, and going on to do post-graduate studies at the Sorbonne, Paris. He subsequently held faculty positions at the University of Ibadan, where he retired as full professor in 2011. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Theatre Arts, Kwara State University, Nigeria.
Osofisan is Vice President of the Pan African Writers' Association.
In 2016, he became the first African to be awarded the prestigious Thalia Prize by the International Association of Theatre Critics, the induction ceremony taking place on 27 September.

Writing

Osofisan has written and produced more than 60 plays. He has also written four prose works: Ma'ami, Abigail, Pirates of Hurt and Cordelia, first produced in newspaper columns, in The Daily Times and then The Guardian. One of his prose works; Ma'ami was adapted into a film in 2011.
Several of Osofisan's plays are adaptations of works by other writers: Women of Owu from Euripides' The Trojan Women; Who's Afraid of Solarin? from Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector; No More the Wasted Breed from Wole Soyinka's The Strong Breed; Another Raft from J. P. Clark's The Raft; Tegonni: An African Antigone from Sophocles′ Antigone, and others.
Osofisan in his works also emphasizes gender: his representation of women as objects, objects of social division, due to shifting customs and long-lived traditions, and also as instruments for sexual exploitation; and his portrayal of women as subjects, individuals capable of cognition, endowed with consciousness and will, and capable of making decisions and effecting actions.

Selected works