Controversial Nigerian scholar to talk about African literature in Berlin

Professor Pius Adesanmi, director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University in Canada, will participate at a public discussion on African literature in Berlin on 26 September. The event, organised by the literary agency InterKontinental, will take place in Literaturhaus Berlin.

Adesanmi is well known for his often satiric writings, focusing on the absurd in the Nigerian social and political system. His targets often include politicians, pastors, and other relevant public figures.

The author and scholar has almost 30,000 followers online and is not afraid to speak truth to power, for instance in 2015, when the Emir of Kano married an under-aged girl as his fourth wife and Prof. Adesanmi’s article on the matter causes nationwide controversy.

Adesanmi has notably addressed audiences on African issues on such prestigious platforms as the Stanford Forum for African Studies, the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation’s annual lecture series, the International Leadership Platform of the University of Johannesburg, the African Unity for Renaissance series of the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute and the Africa Institute of South Africa, the Diaspora Consultation series of the African Union Agenda 2063, and the Academy of Science of South Africa series. He has just completed a one-year stint in Ghana as a Carnegie Diaspora Visiting Professor of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.

Prof. Adesanmi is the internationally-acclaimed winner of the inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing (2010) in the non-fiction category with his book, You’re not a Country, Africa. His first book, The Wayfarer and Other Poems, won the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize in 2001.

Date: 26 September 2018, 7:30 pm

Venue: Literaturhaus Berlin, Fasanenstraße 23, 10719 Berlin

More information: http://www.interkontinental.org/boat/