Professor Tanure Ojaide, author of Songs of Myself (review here) is an accomplished and prolific writer with 20 collections of poetry and countless awards to his name. He has been at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) since July 1990 where he is the Frank Porter Graham Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies, but he has lived in Ilorin, Kwara State, now for a couple of years – a fact I didn’t know until I got to speak to him for this series.

In this conversation, I ask him about a number of things including the transition from living, working, and publishing around the world to settling back into the Nigerian environment in a deliberate attempt to capture a new home audience. I was also very interested in his use of Urhobo language and poetic style in his work.

The interview was the longest of the three writers, but it has been edited here for brevity.


Read the previous reviews, and watch previous interviews, here.