Niyi Osundare, a Literary Biography

Book excerpt: In this literary biography, Sule E. Egya, one of Nigeria's most promising scholar-critics, brings the skills of the storyteller and the scholar to bear on his recreation of the Osundare story. The result is a readable coming-of-age story that traces the writer's development from his rural and agrarian roots in Nigeria, through his education in Africa, Europe and North America, to his rise to prominence as one of the most versatile poets writing in English today. There can be no better platform to register the debt that Osundare owes his parentage, the rigorous discipline of his mentors and the diverse environments in which his outlook on the world has been shaped than this carefully crafted biography. Egya highlights Osundare's prodigious talent, his unwavering ethical compass, his infectious humanism, his enduring faith in the capacity of literature to reshape the world, and the harmony between his creative imagination and polemical writing. Readers and critics will find the biography an indispensable companion to reading Osundare not just because of the illuminating personal and cultural information that it offers, but also because it equally periodizes Osundare's work in a way no other book has done. Prof. Oyeniyi Okunoye, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife In Niyi Osundare: A Literary Biography, Sule E. Egya takes us on a journey of the life experiences of the artist-scholar Niyi Osundare. Indeed, there are some books a reader just can't put down. This is one of them. It takes you to the other worlds beyond the popular world of artistry and scholarship of one of Africa's most accomplished men of letters. Dr. Ogaga Okuyade, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island.