Book to celebrate Wale Okediran @ 70 calls for papers

The call for insightful, well–researched and positioned chapters on the many faces of Dr Wale Okediran’s arts and practices to mark his 70th birth anniversary in April, 2025 has gone out. This book seeks to explore Okediran’s rich multidisciplinary contributions to literature, medicine, cultural studies and political discourse: How his creative imaginations, newspaper articles, biographical, travel writings have, over the years, contributed to knowledge productions in the field of literature and medicine in Nigeria and Africa.

The proposed book, Medicine and Literature Without Borders: Health, Humanities and Social Justice in the Writings of Wale Okediran, will explore the multidisciplinary outlook of Okediran’s literary oeuvres.

Therefore, contributions that will be featured into the proposed book are to revolve round (but not limited to) the following sub-themes: Social Vision and Wale Okediran’s Work; Diseases, Medicalisation and Wale Okediran’s Writings; Medical Ethics, the Therapeutic Relationship and Wale Okediran’s Writings.

The Medical Humanities, Bibliotherapy, Scriptotherapy and Wale Okediran’s Writings; Health, Medical Consciousness and Wale Okediran’s Medical Columns; Politics and Social Justice in Wole Okediran’s Writings; The Art of Wale Okediran’s Short Stories; Children in Wale Okediran’s Creative Oeuvres; The Travelogues of Wale Okediran; Travel Writing as Literature; The Writer as a Biographer; Wale Okediran’s Popular Literature and the Reading Culture; The Writer in Politics: The Example of Wale Okediran; The Writer as a Literary Administrator: The Praxis of Wale Okediran; The Nexus between Literature and Film and Wale Okediran’s Place and Writers’ Residencies and the Empowerment of Literature.

According to one of the editors of the book and former President, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Denja Abdullahi, “Okediran is one of the most acclaimed physician-writers in Nigeria, whose career bestrides the domains of medicine, literature and politics. Dr. Okediran’s life, as demonstrated in his writings, is a vibrant intersection of the multifarious and disparate experiences that define human existence.”

Trained and practised as a physician, Okediran eventually developed a lifelong commitment to creative writing and political practice. His engagements as a politician underscore his humanistic principles, possibly shaped by his twin career of medicine and literature. In 2001, Professor Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale, the first Professor of Literature and Medicine in Nigeria, defended his PhD thesis on the creative works of Nigerian physician-writers in the Department of English, University of Ibadan, which featured the work of Wale Okediran.

“Like the Russian physician-writer, Anton Chekhov, who declares that “medicine is my lawful, wedded wife and literature is my mistress”, Okediran has remarkably established the symbiotic relationship between medicine and literature both in his writings and social activities. Besides the orthodox literary productions, he has also ventured into similar domains of writings like newspaper column, biographical narratives and travel writing,” Denja said, adding: “The utilitarian and didactic import of his writings manifest in his ability to imagine a better social order by making suggestion for human and societal improvement.”

He said: “Beyond conventional political practice, Okediran has brought his managerial skill to bear in arts administration.”

Over the years, Okediran has remained an exemplary literary administrator with his decades of experience as state chairman, treasurer, general secretary and president of ANA. He was Chairman of the Nigeria Book Fair Trust (NIBFT) and current Secretary-General of the Pan-African Writers’ Association (PAWA), with headquarters in Accra, Ghana. He is the founder and promoter of the Ebedi International Writers Residency in Iseyin, Oyo State. Dr. Okediran has inspired national and international networking and collaborations in literary engagements.

Interested contributors are to adhere to the MLA ninth edition style sheet. All essays must be in MS word, Times New Roman, 12 fonts with 1.5 line-spacing (except indented quotations, that should be in single line-spacing). The volume of an essay ranges from 5,000 to 7,000 words. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2024. Dedicated and focused personal tribute essays on any of the identified multi-dimensions of the man, Wale Okediran, will also be welcomed.

All Submissions should be made to the editors through the following email address: [email protected].