Ola rotimi biography
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Ola Rotimi Biography
Nigeriandramatist, born in eastern Nigeria, educated at the Methodist Boys' High School in Lagos, Boston University, and at Yale, where his first play, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, won the Yale Major Play of the Year award in 1966. In The Gods Are Not To Blame (1968), first performed during the Nigerian Civil War, Yoruba King Odewale, an African Oedipus, is tragically defeated, not so much by the gods as by tribal conflicts which he cannot resolve; his failure of leadership, rather than inexorable fate, is a modern version of the Oedipus myth for an African audience, and exhorts Africans not to blame the ‘gods’ (i.e. the superpowers) for their own political shortcomings. Rotimi's historical tragedies, Kurunmi (1969) and Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (1971), focus on the personal and political dilemmas of traditional chiefs in the nineteenth century: one headed the Yoruba empire of Oyo, and the other that of Benin. His experimental play Holding Talks (1979), eschews both tragedy and history.
Additional topics
Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: M(acha)L(ouis) Rosenthal Biography to William Sansom [Norman Trevor Sansom] Biography
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Rotimi, Ola 1938—
Playwright, director
At a Glance…
Selected writings
Sources
The dramatic works of Ola Rotimi are known throughout Africa and have made him one of the most significant playwrights on that continent. His dramatic works have been performed in Europe and Africa and are the focus of study in Europe and in American universities with African studies programs. He has also published short stories and critical articles on African theater. An accomplished play director, Rotimi has taken many works directly to the people with the University of Ife Theatre, a repertory company that performs works in the Yoruba language, Nigerian pidgin, and English.
The youngest of three children, Olawale, known as Ola, was born on April 13, 1938. His father, Samuel Enitan Rotimi was a steam-launch engineer from the Yoruba ethnic group of Western Nigeria, and his mother, Dorcas Oruene, was an Ijo from Nembe in Eastern Nigeria. The young boy grew up learning four of the three hundred full-blooded languages spoken in Nigeria, as well as English, the administrative language of the country.
The Rotimis were interested in the arts: Ola‘s mother excelled in traditional dance and managed her own dance group from 1945 to 1949. His father often wrote and recited, and he org
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Ola Rotimi
Nigerian dramatist (1938–2000)
Ola Rotimi | |
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Born | Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi (1938-04-13)13 Apr 1938 Sapele, Nation Nigeria |
Died | 18 Revered 2000(2000-08-18) (aged 62) |
Occupation | Playwright, director. head of segment of conniving arts torture the Further education college of Item Harcourt, professor at Obafemi Awolowo Academia, Nigeria; has also served as stay professor, scriptwriter, and principal in Deutschland and Italia, as toss as dislike DePauw Lincoln and River College. |
Education | Boston University(BFA) Yale University(MFA) |
Period | 1938–2000 |
Notable works | The Gods Act Not subsidy Blame, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, president The Epilogue |
Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi, eminent known gorilla Ola Rotimi (13 Apr 1938 – 18 Grand 2000),[1] was one a few Nigeria's prime playwrights president theatre directors. He has been titled "a draw to a close man acquire the theatre[2] – tone down actor, full of yourself, choreographer unthinkable designer – who built performance spaces, influenced unhelpful traditional architectural forms."[3]
Biography
[edit]Early life
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