Osofisan installed as 2016 Thalia laureate

Professor Femi Osofisan being given the award

Nigerian’s foremost playwright, scholar and literary giant, Professor Femi Osofisan has been formally inducted as the winner of the prestigious Thalia Award by the UNESCO global partner in the performing Arts- the International Association of Theatre Critics.

The event, which was attended by over 150 world authorities in theatre criticism from 66 countries took place on Tuesday 27th September, 2016 at about 3:00pm Nigeria time, in the German Embassy to Serbia.

The Nigeria Ambassador to Serbia and the German Ambassador to Serbia led the cream of the international community who witnessed the glamorous event.

Osofisan has by the feat become the first African to be so recognized by the respected Thalia Award committee. The Thalia Award is a unique professional honour next only to the Nobel Prize for literature, which Nigeria also won in 1986

A cross section of audience at the award presentation

Unlike the situation where a prophet is not recognized in his home, enroute Belgrade to be installed as a Thalia laureate, the African continent had her opportunity to showcase Femi Osofisan as its leading dramatist through an impressive ceremony in Egypt.

On the 20 September, he was honored as one of the icons of African Theatre at the 2016 edition of the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre.

Osofisan’s award in Cairo, Egypt

This also came few months after the Pan African Writers Association honored Osofisan for his contributions to literary development of the African continent.

Osofisan in his acceptance speech as Thalia laureate thanked the organizers for the life changing honour that has shifted global attention to African Theatre and literature, which he believed has a lot more to offer humanity and the emerging global knowledge economy.

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