FAMOUS AUTHOR KOLE OMOTOSO PASSES AWAY AT AGE 80

Tunji Wusu –

Prof. Kole Omotoso, one of Nigeria’s most renowned novelists and writers, passed away at the age of 80 in South Africa, the family has confirmed.
The family released the following statement: “On Wednesday, September 19, late afternoon, our cherished father and husband left this plane. We are sharing this with his close-knit circle and will continue to do so as soon as we have gathered ourselves. By Akin, Pelayo, Yewande, and Bukky, “Thank you for your care, love, and support.

Prof. Omotoso, who turned 80 in April, was best known in South Africa for his fiction and for playing the “Yebo Gogo man” in Vodacom commercials.

His written work was renowned for his devotion to incorporating a regard for human dignity and a socio-political revaluation of Africa into the majority of his writings.

He was also known as the Yebo Gogo (Hello Grandmother) guy in South Africa and served as the spokesperson for a protracted advertising campaign for Vodacom’s mobile phone in that nation.

The late Omotoso received his education at Kings College and the University of Ibadan. He then pursued a doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh on the modern Arabic author Ahmad Ba Kathir.

His novel Just before dawn caused controversy in 1988 and forced him to leave Nigeria.

He held visiting professorships in English at the National University of Lesotho and the University of Stirling before working for a while at the Talawa Theatre Company in London. From 1991 to 2000, he was an English professor at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He served as a lecturer in the Stellenbosch University Drama Department from 2001 to 2003.

Among his works are 1971) The Combat (1972; Penguin Classics, 2008, ISBN 978-0143185536) Miracles (short stories) (1973) Fela’s Choice (1974) Sacrifice (1974, 1978) The Scales (1976)
To Borrow a Wandering Leaf (1978)
Memories of Our Recent Boom (1982)
Just Before Dawn (Spectrum Books, 1988,). Others are The Curse (1976)
Shadows in the Horizon (1977)
The Form of the African Novel (1979 etc.)
The Theatrical Into Theatre: a study of the drama and theatre of the English-speaking Caribbean (1982)
Season of Migration to the South: Africa’s crises reconsidered (1994) and
Achebe or Soyinka? A Study in Contrasts (1995).