“We need to grow the review segment of the creative sector of the publishing industry and for that, a continuous identification of fresh minds is imperative”, he said. “We were hoping for some sort of baton exchange ritual”, he said of the reason for the event. Jahman Anikulapo, programme director of the Book Festival, regretted the students’ no-show. “They were expecting me to contact them a day or so prior to the session”. “It was a breakdown in communication”, he testified. “It wasn’t entirely their fault”, explained Hope Eghagha, Head of the UNILAG English department and convener of the event, who himself was absent as a result of an out-of- town engagement. Instead, the expectant audience was presented with three lecturers of the department, engaging, with keen observation, the wide range of issues in the provocative text, with Clark in attendance. The conversation was to centre onĬlark’s America Their America, published when the 84 year old professor was in his late 20s, in 1964. Why UNILAG Students Didn’t Review JP Clark’s BookĪ key highlight of the seven day programme of the Lagos Book and Art Festival was an interaction between three undergraduate students of English at the University of Lagos and the author JP Clark, first African born professor of English language studies. There will be a lot of celebration by the arthouse crowd, as TK turns 70 on February 26, 2018, but this superbly talented artist has cleverly chosen a Soyinka play as a central theme for the party.
To turn Lion and The Jewel into Sidi Ilujinle, Kelani consulted Kehinde Olojede, provost of the College of Education, Akoka, for the translation of the play into Yoruba and asked Taiwo Egunjobi to do the screenplay. TK has spoken fondly of turning Cyprian Ekwensi’s The Passport of Mallam Ilia into a movie, but it hasn’t happened. As a film auteur, he has produced and directed Koseegbe, (from Akinwunmi Ishola’s text of the same name), Oleku, adapted from a novel by the same author and several other texts. In the late 1980s, he was involved in the production of IWA, an adaptation of Adebayo Faleti’s Idaamu Paadi Mikailu, directed by Lola Fani- Kayode. Kelani is always fascinated about the idea of translating Nigerian literary texts into the motion picture. Sidi Ilujinle is the first film adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s Lion and The Jewel, a play first performed 58 years ago. As he releases his latest movie, Sidi Ilujinle, in cinemas from December, the country’s most important filmmaker is inadvertently providing the material for the talking buzz around that landmark birthday. Three months from now, Tunde Kelani will be 70 years old.
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