Grandma's Sun

Tayo Olafioye is a poet, novelist and scholar, active in Nigeria and the united States. He has won prizes for his volumes of poetry, which include Sorrows of a Town Crier (1988) and Bush Girl Comes to Town (1988). His other publications include The Excellence of Silence, the Saga of Sego (1982) and two works of literary criticism: Responses to Creativity (1988) and critic as Terrorist: Views on New African Writings (1989). His most recent collections are entitled A Carnival of Looters (2000) and The Parliament of Idiots (2002), both published by Kraft Books, Nigeria. This is the author's semi-fictional autobiography, written in the third person, following in the tradition of Camara Laye's African Child, Wole Soyinka's trilogy (Ake, Isara, Ibadan) and Tanure Ojaide's Great Boys: An African Childhood. The narrative describes the author's birth and childhood in Igbotako, education and career at the University of Lagos and at universities in the States. Throughout, the author is concerned with the historical junctures and social and cultural changes in postcolonial Nigeria.