Prof. Femi Osofisan wins Thalia prize 2016

ITRealms:

Professor BabaFemi Adeyemi Osofisan has been named winner of the coveted Thalia Prize 2016 by the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), a UNESCO's statute B partner in theatre criticism, reports ITRealms.

He is the first African and indeed first black man to ever win this highly contested and prestigious award and is married to Professor Mrs Nike Osofisan former president of the Computer Professional Registration Council of Nigeria.

Also known as Femi Osofisan or F.O., he was born on June 1946 at Erunwon, Ogun State,  is a Nigerian writer noted for his critique of societal problems and his use of African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his novels. A frequent theme that 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.

Osofisan has three prose works Ma'ami, Abigail and Cordelia, first produced in newspaper columns, in The Daily Times and then The Guardian (Nigeria).

Several of Osofisan's plays are adaptations of works by other writers: Women of Owu from Euripides' The Trojan Women; Who's Afraid of Solarin? from Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector; No More the Wasted Breed from Wole Soyinka's The Strong Breed; Another Raft from J. P. Clark's The Raft; Tegonni: An African Antigone from Sophocles′ Antigone, and others.

Osofisan in his works also emphasizes gender: his representation of women as objects, objects of social division, due to shifting customs and long-lived traditions, and also as instruments for sexual exploitation; and his portrayal of women as subjects, individuals capable of cognition, endowed with consciousness and will, capable of making decisions and effecting actions.

We are proud to announce that the 2016 Thalia Prize of the International Association of Theatre Critics will be awarded to Femi Osofisan of Nigeria, a playwright, director, actor, critic, poet, novelist, editor and newspaper columnist. The Thalia Prize is meant to highlight the work of those who have helped critics around the globe to understand new ways of seeing and appreciating the performing arts worldwide. The 2016 Thalia Prize will be presented to the awardee during the IATC Congress in Belgrade.

The IATC has been around for a long time: this year it is celebrating 60 years. But the Thalia Prize is young – only ten years old. Since the prize was created, its laureates have been Eric Bentley (2006), Jean-Pierre Sarrazac (2008), Richard Schechner (2010), Kapila Vatsyayan (2012) and Eugenio Barba (2014).