The Niyi Osundare International Poetry Festival 2022 will be hosted in Ado Ekiti, Nigeria on June 6, 2022. The festival theme is “Pandemic, Lockdown and The Poet.”
Niyi Osundare has authored numerous books of poetry, two books of selected poems, four plays, a book of essays, and numerous monographs and articles on literature, language, culture, and society. The New Orleans-based Nigerian has won prizes for poetry and other forms like the Noma Award, and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. In 2014, he was the sole winner of the Nigeria National Order of Merit Award, which is the officially recognized award for excellence in the Nigerian academy.
The Niyi Osundare International Poetry Festival was set up to celebrate both the art of poetry and Osundare the man in 2015. The festival with Tunde Laniyan as executive director happened annually until it was hosted in Cross River State in 2019 and then had to take a Covid break. The 2022 edition returns to Ekiti State at Archbishop Abiodun Adetiloye Hall, Fountain Hotel, Iyin Road in Ado Ekiti city.
This year’s edition is chaired by Prof Toyin Jegede, Head, Department of English, University of Ibadan, and has the theme “Pandemic, Lockdown, and The Poet.” Giving a keynote address on it will be Prof Saleh Abdu Kwami of Gombe State University, Gombe. The special guest for the event will be Ekiti State Governor Dr Kayode Fayemi.
Apart from the usual festival theme, this year the good professor turned 75 and his landmark year will be celebrated at this event.
