- Festus Iyayi
Festus Iyayi (born 1947, in
Benin City ) is a Nigeria writer known for his radical and sometimes though stance on social and political issues. Iyayi employs a realistic style of writing, depicting the social, political and moral environment and system both the rich and poor live and work in. Iyayi was also a former president of the Association of Senior Staff of Universities (ASSU).Life and Education
Iyayi was born in Edo state, Nigeria. His family lived on little means but instilled in him strong moral lessons about life. Iyayi started his education at Annuciation Catholic College in the old Bendel state popularly known as ACC finishing in 1966, in 1967 he went to Government College Ughelli graduating in 1968. In that same year he was a zonal winner in a Kenedy Essay Competition organised by the United Sates Embassy in Nigeria. He left the shores of Nigeria to pursue his higher education, obtaining a M.Sc in Industrial Economics from the Kiev Institute of Economics, in the former USSR and then his Ph.D from the University of Bradford, England. In 1980, he went back to Benin and became a lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at the University of Benin. As a member of staff of the University, he became interested in radical social issues, and a few years after his employment, he became the president of the local branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), a radical union known for its upfront style on academic and social welfare. He rose to the position of president of the national organization in 1986, but in 1988, the union was briefly banned and Iyayi was detained, in that same year he won the Commomwealth Prize for Literature for his book Heroes. He was later removed from his faculty position. Today, Iyayi is a member of different
Nigerian literary organizations and works in the private sector as a consultant.Works
*Violence. London, 1979
*The Contract, 1982
*Heroes. Harlow, U.K.: Longman, 1986.ee also
*
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
*Meja Mwangi References
*Obi Maduakor, African Writers Vol. 1 1997.
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