ANA@40: Meet our Keynote Speaker and Anniversary Lecturer

 

ANA@40: MEET OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND ANNIVERSARY LECTURER

 

 

AKACHI ADIMORA-EZEIGBO (KEYNOTE SPEAKER)

 

 

Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, a multiple award-winning prolific writer and international scholar. Currently, the Chairperson of the Advisory Board for the Nigerian Prize for Literature (NLNG). Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo has taught in three universities in Nigeria – University of Lagos, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo (AE-FUNAI) and Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, in Ebonyi State – as well as in South Africa and the United Kingdom. She was a three-time Head of English Department at University of Lagos (Unilag), and received the Best Researcher Award in the Arts and the Humanities from Unilag in 2005.

 

She has been awarded visiting Fellowships in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Germany and has given keynote lectures in universities in the USA. Apart from academic books and scholarly articles in local and international journals, she has published in all genres of literature: she is a poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer and children’s author.

 

Adimora-Ezeigbo is a joint winner of The Nigeria Prize for Literature (NPL) in 2007 with her children’s novel entitled My Cousin Sammy. She is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL), the Literary Society of Nigeria (FLSN), English Scholars Association of Nigeria (FESAN) and Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA). She was the Vice President of PEN International, Nigerian Centre (2002-2011) and Vice President of Women Writers Association of Nigeria – WRITA (1995-1999). Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo is a Director in the Board of Directors of University Press PLC, Ibadan, and a Member of the Governing Council of the National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINLAN), Aba. She was the Chair of the Panel of Judges for the 2011 The Nigeria Prize for Literature.

 

Adimora-Ezeigbo is married and has children and grandchildren.

 

 

FEMI OSOFISAN (ANNIVERSARY LECTURER)

 

 

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.