In new book, Sola Adeyemi interrogates Femi Òsófisan’s dialectical reading of history, politics

Book: Vision of Change in African Drama: Fémi Òsófisan’s Dialectical Reading of History and Politics
Author: Sola Adeyemi
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Release Date: August 12, 2019

Femi Òsófisan is a major dramatist from Nigeria who experiments with forms and theatrical traditions. This book focuses on his development as a dramatist and his contribution to world drama as a postcolonial African writer whose major preoccupation has been to question the colonial and postcolonial issues of identity in theatre, literature and performance.

The volume explores how Òsófisan exploits his Yorùbá heritage in his drama and the performances of his plays by reading new meanings into popular mythology, and by re-writing history to comment on contemporary social and political issues. Òsófisan has often introduced new motifs and narratives to energise dramatic performances in Nigeria and globally, and this text discusses developments in his theatre practices in the context of changing cultural trends.

Adéyemí is a research fellow at the Interweaving Performance Cultures International Research Centre in Berlin, Germany. He also lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research focuses on world theatres and performance studies, particularly the writings of Òsófisan.

Adeyemi is the editor of Portraits for an Eagle: Essays in Honour of Femi Osofisan (2006). His other books include, Femi Osofisan, Post-Negritude Tradition and 50 Years of Nigerian Literary Drama (2018). He is also the editor of a volume of short stories from Nigeria, Goddess of the Storm and Other Stories (2000).