Professor Emeritus Biodun Jeyifo, a Nigerian academic and literary critic widely regarded as one of the foremost scholars of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, has died. He was 80.
The President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Andrew Haruna, announced Mr Jeyifo’s death in a statement on Wednesday, saying the scholar passed away on 11 February.
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Known to colleagues and students as “Professor BJ”, Mr Jeyifo built a distinguished academic career that began at the then University of Ife, before he held dual teaching appointments at Cornell University and Harvard University in the United States.
In January, an international scholarly gathering was held at the MUSON Centre in Lagos to mark his 80th birthday. The event drew academics, writers and cultural figures in recognition of his lifelong contributions to literary studies and intellectual life.
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Leading authority on the life and works of Wole Soyinka
Mr Jeyifo was widely recognised as a leading authority on the life and works of Wole Soyinka. His book, Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics and Postcolonialism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2004, earned international acclaim and several awards.
Scholars often describe the work as one of the most extensive and rigorous single-author studies in African postcolonial literary criticism.
Unlike some critics who viewed the complexity of Mr Soyinka’s writing as deliberate obscurity, Mr Jeyifo’s scholarship argued that the perceived difficulty of the Nobel laureate’s work was rooted in modernist and avant-garde literary techniques.
His approach combined close textual analysis with broader political and cultural interpretation, offering detailed readings of Soyinka’s drama, poetry and prose.
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Intellectually rigorous and accessible
Colleagues have often described Mr Jeyifo’s writing as both intellectually rigorous and accessible, blending critical depth with clarity of expression.
Beyond Soyinka studies, he was known for his wide-ranging engagement with world Anglophone literature, cultural theory and postcolonial thought.
Born on 5 January 1946, Mr Jeyifo was a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and a prominent public intellectual whose career spanned several decades of teaching, research and mentorship across Nigeria and the United States.
In announcing his death, the Nigerian Academy of Letters expressed condolences to his family and the academic community, describing his passing as a significant loss to literary scholarship in Nigeria and beyond.
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