The world heard the sad news of the passing of one of Nigeria’s literary greats earlier today, Saturday, February 17, 2018.
Akinwunmi Ishola had died in the same city in which he was born in 1939 – Ibadan. He was popularly referred to as “Honest Man” by many of his friends and colleagues.
From Labode Methodist School and Wesley College through to the Universities of Ibadan and Lagos, Isola’s path always seemed clear. This was somebody who wrote his first play, Efunsetan Aniwura in 1961 as a student in Ibadan and his novel – Oleku was watched by forty thousand people during a performance of it.
Isola was determined to play his part in keeping the Yorùbá language alive and despite writing a lot in his native language, he still managed to write in English.
Some of Akinwunmi Isola’s other works include:
- Efúnṣetán Aníwúra, Iyálóde Ìbàdàn, and Tinúubú, Ìyálóde Ẹgbá – 1970
- Madam Tinubu – 1998
- Ogún Ọmọdé – 1990
- Belly Bellows – 2009
- Herbert Macaulay and the Spirit of Lagos – 2009
- The Campus Queen – 2009
- Ṣaworoidẹ – 2008
- Òrìṣà wo ló ń gun òǹkọ̀wé? – 2009
- Making Culture Memorable: Essays in Language, Culture and Development – 2010
- Ẹfúnróyè Tinubu – 2009
- Two Contemporary African Plays – 1992
The National Merit Award and the Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters are some of the honours Isola has to his name.
It is without doubt that the Yoruba language has lost one of its major preservers in Akinwunmi Isola.
He will be mourned by his four children, wife, extended family and the world at large.
This post was first published on tns.ng.