Niyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare is a poet, dramatist, critic, essayist, and media columnist, as well as a Distinguished Professor of English at The University of New Orleans who has authored 18 books of poetry, two books of selected poems, four plays, a book of essays, and numerous monographs and articles on literature, language, culture, and society. Born in Nigeria, he was educated on three continents, receiving a B.A. (Honours) from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, an M.A. from the University of Leeds in England, and Ph.D. from York University, Toronto, Canada. Osundare has received many prizes for his creative works: the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Prize, the Cadbury/ANA Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Noma Award (Africa’s most prestigious book award), the Tchicaya U Tam’si Award for African Poetry, and the Fonlon/Nichols Award for “excellence in literary creativity combined with significant contributions to Human Rights in Africa.” He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the Universite de Toulouse-le Mirail in France and Franklin Pierce University in Rindge New Hampshire, USA. He reads and performs his work around the globe; his poems have been translated into French, Italian, Slovenian, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, and Korean. He is a columnist for Newswatch, a prominent Nigerian newsmagazine; he maintains a weekly poetry column (Lifelines) in Nigeria’s Sunday Tribune, and is a frequent newspaper radio and television commentator on current affairs. Osundare has an active commitment to social justice, particularly freedom of speech and is known for his saying “to utter is to alter.”