Tobosun Receives International Award For Mother Tongue Literature 2016

Nigerian linguist, teacher and writer, Mr. Kola Tubosun has been named the recipient of the Premio Ostana International Award for Scriptures in the Mother Tongue 2016, (Il Premio Ostana Internazionale Scritture in Lingua Madre 2016). The prize is organised by Culture ofthe Chambra D’Oc in Ostana, (Cuneo, Italy), and given for the defense of indigenous language and for educational and informative activities by the recipient.

The eight edition of the prize ceremony will hold from June 2nd through 5th, 2016 in Italy. It is in collaboration with the Municipality of Ostana.

Past winners of the international prize include Jaques Thiers (2015), Lance David Henson (2014), Mehmet Altun (2013), Harkaitz Cano (2011), Witi Tame Ihimaera (2010), among others.

For the first time in the history of the award, it is going to an African author, a Nigerian in particular. Kọ́lá Tubosun was born in Ìbàdàn, Nigeria, in 1981; he studied Linguistics at the University of Ibadan before proceeding to Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, U.S., for his Masters programme in (2012).

He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2009. In early 2012, he founded Tweet Yoruba Movement, to create awareness for Yoruba on the Internet. In October 2015, he was appointed as Speech Linguistic Project Manager at Google (Nigeria).

Tubosun has published fiction and non-fiction in Africa and beyond. He has also translated from English to Yorùbá and from Yorùbá to English.

In February 2015. His non-fiction piece, Class Sessions, was published in the Jalada Magazine’s (September, 2015).