Ola Rotimi, the Great Nigerian scholar in the world of theater art.

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As a literature student during my school days, I read novels a lot. I've come across many authors especially those from Africa. I read books from foreign writers as well, but in literature class, we mostly deal with African poets.

I was searching for a book on my shelve and came across a book by ola Rotimi. I read the book long ago, and I must

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confess that the writer did a great job. I read the book again, and it was as if I was reading it for the first time. The book is titled ‘the gods are not to blame’.

I'm not reviewing this book in this article. You can follow me to get the details of this story in my next publication. I will be talking about the author in this article. What do you know about Ola Rotimi? Where is he from? Get to know more about him by reading to the end. Let's begin.

Who is Ola Rotimi?

Many people don’t know his full name, but I will make it known In this article. His full names are Emmanuel Gladstone Olawale Rotimi. He was born on April 13, 1938, into a double tribe family. His father is a Yoruba man while his mother an Ijaw from the eastern part of Nigeria.

He completed his primary education at Portharcourt and his secondary at Methodist Boy’ High School, Lagos from 1952 to 1956. Rotimi got a scholarship to study theater at Boston due to his intelligence. While in secondary school, he was nicknamed “SHAKESPEARE INCARNATE” for his style of writing.

He received a master of fine arts degree in play writing and dramatic literature at Yale University in 1996 and spent most of his life outside Nigeria as a teacher/lecturer in his field. He returned to Nigeria in the year 2000 and died the same year after working at OAU.

Ola inherited art from his family

Looking at the history of Ola Rotimi’s family, it’s clear that the spirit of theater flows in their blood vessel. Ola's father, Samuel Enitan Rotimi was a play writer. He organized a community theater in port Harcourt and he did well throughout his days as a theater man. Ola's mother managed her dance group from 1945 to 1949.

His uncle chief Robert Dede was the lead performer in a traditional dance group (Masquerade). Amidst all these wonderful people is Ola Rotimi. He blended into art at the age of 4 when his dad featured him in a play written and directed by him. It’s obvious that they have the spirit of entertainment in them.

List of some of Ola Rotimi’s booksThis man wrote more than 18 books. Below are some of them.

• The gods are not to blame
• Kurumi
• Ovanramwen Nogbaisi
• Holding talks
• A tragedy of the naked
• Hope of the living dead

His style

I've made little attempts to carry out linguistic analyses of the texts in his books, however, having read most of his books, I would say late Ola Rotimi channeled his cultural context towards Nigerians. He uses English Language to create an elegant simplicity with his traditional writing style. He mostly uses monosyllabic and disyllabic words plus his traditional songs and dance. His writings is based on language, culture, and proverbs

Rotimi is a man of history who prioritize history in most of his piece. One of the things I love about his style is the way he manages to construct traditional proverbs with English in a traditional way. Let me state some below.

• “The hen eats corn, drink water, swallow pebbles, and yet complains of having no teeth. Let her ask the cow who has teeth, but yet eat grass”
• “The grinding stone says you must kneel to my powers”
• "The toad likes water, but not when the water is boiling"
• "By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from tree to tree without falling."
• "Until the rotten tooth is pulled out, the mouth must chew with caution."
• "The horns cannot be too heavy for the head of the cow that must bear them."

I love all the proverbs and his style. If I have the chance of becoming a play writer, I will follow his style and probably become the great beauty chicks of our time.

Thanks for reading.
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