Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan (born June 1946 in Erunwon, Ogun State) is a Nigerian writer known for his critique of societal problems and his use of African traditional performances and surrealism in.

some of his novels. A frequent theme his novels explore is the conflict between good and evil.He is in fact a didactic writer whose works seek to correct his decadent society.

Femi Osofisan is a prolific Nigerian critic, poet, novelist, and playwright whose work attacks political corruption and injustice, was born in Erunwon village in the old Western Region of Nigeria and educated at the universities of Ibadan, Dakar, and Paris; he is a professor of drama at the University of Ibadan.

Among the literary awards and commendations he has won are prizes from the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for both drama (1980) and poetry (1989) and in 2004 he was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), the highest academic prize in the country.

Femi Osofisan is a critic, poet, novelist, essayist, lecturer, editor, publisher, culture activist, the most prolific, most performed and the most enthusiastically received playwright in Nigeria. He has written and produced over 40 plays. Numbered among them are Midnight Hotel, Morountodun, Who is Afraid of Solarin?, Birthdays are not for the Dying, and his latest play, Ajayi Crowther.

His poems published under the pseudonym, Okinba Launko are Minted Coins and Dream Seeker on Diving Chain. His writing employs a range of literary devices such as humour, irony, song, dance folktale and fables. No doubt Osofisan says one of his favourite books is Toyin Falola’s A Mouth Sweeter than Salt. Reason being “the quality of its language, its extraordinary use of proverbs, its humor, its sense of history, and the robust and rippling picture it paints of the history and the politics of Ibadan at a time contemporaneous with my own life in the city.”

Femi Osofisan was born 60 years ago in Erunwon Village in the old western region of Nigeria. He was educated at the universities of Ibadan, Dakar and Paris. He has held several posts and won several awards, the most recent, the 2006 Fonlon-Nichols Award bestowed annually on an African writer for excellence in creative writing and for contributions to the struggles for human rights.

Osofisan attended primary school at Ife and secondary school at Government College, Ibadan.

After secondary school, he attended the University of Senegal in Dakar and later the University of Ibadan. He continued post-graduate studies at the University of Ibadan and went on to hold faculty positions at the University.

Works

Kolera Kolej. New Horn, 1975.

The Chattering and the Song. Ibadan: Ibadan UP, 1977.

Morountodun and Other Plays. Lagos: Longman, 1982.

Minted Coins (poetry), Heinemann, 1987.

Another Raft. Lagos: Malthouse, 1988.

Once upon Four Robbers. Ibadan: Heinemann, 1991

Twingle-Twangle A-Twynning Tayle. Longman, 1992.

Yungba-Yungba and the Dance Contest: A Parable for Our Times, Heinemann Educational,Nigeria, 1993.

The Album of the Midnight Blackout, University Press, Nigeria, 1994.

Tegonni: An African Antigone. Tegonni, an African Antigone. Ibadan: Opon Ifa, 1999.

Books by Femi Osofisan,/b>

1.Women of Owu ( 2006)

2.The Oriki of a Grasshopper, and Other Plays ( 1995)

3.The Nostalgic Drum: Essays on Literature, Drama and Culture ( 2001)

4.Who’s Afraid of Solarin? ( 2007)

5.Aringindin and the Night Watchman (1991)

6.Birthdays are Not for Dying and Other Plays (1990)

7.Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels ( 1991)

8.Kolera Kolej (Opon Ifa Readers) ( 2000)

9.Literature and the Pressures of Freedom: Essays, Speeches and Songs (2006)

10.Two One-act Plays: Oriki of a Grasshopper AND Altine’s Wrath ( 1986)

11.Yungba Yungba and the Dance Contest: A Parable for Our Times (1994)

12.The Album of the Midnight Blackout (1994)

13.The Chattering and the Song ( 1976)

14.The Engagement: A play (1995)

15.Excursions in drama and literature: Interviews with Femi Osofisan (1993)

16.Farewell to a Cannibal Rage (1986)

17.Midnight Hotel (1986

Selected Works

When Love Whispers (1948)

An African Night's Entertainment (1948)

The Boa Suitor (1949)

The Leopard's Claw (1950) People of the City (London: Andrew Dakers, 1954)(This novel has been translated into Sinhala by Kumudu Champike Jayawardana The Drummer Boy (1960)

The Passport of Mallam Ilia (written 1948, published 1960)

Jagua Nana (1961)

Burning Grass (1961)

An African Night's Entertainment (1962)

Beautiful Feathers (novel; London: Hutchinson, 1963)

Rainmaker (short stories; 1965)

Iska (London: Hutchinson, 1966)

Lokotown and Other Stories (Heinemann, 1966)

Restless City and Christmas Gold (1975)

Divided We Stand: a Novel of the Nigerian Civil War (1980)

Motherless Baby (Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Company, 1980)

Jagua Nana's Daughter (1987)

Behind the Convent Wall (1987)

The Great Elephant Bird (Evans Brothers, 1990

Gone to Mecca (Heinemann Educational Books, 1991)

Jagua Nana's Daughter (1993)

Masquerade Time (children's book; London: Chelsea House Publishing; Jaws Maui, 1994)

Cash on Delivery (2007, collection of short stories)

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