Obotunde ijimere biography of george

Canonical title

The Imprisonment run through Obatala, ride other plays

Obotunde ore Ijimere
The witty one who knows the hidden
Wisdom in the Monkey’s name
Niyi Osundare1

1In 1966, the Heinemann African Writers Series published a collection of three plays by Nigerian writer Obotunde Ijimere in their English adaptations from the Yoruba by Ulli Beier.2 As Beier explains in his introduction, The Imprisonment of Obatala is based on a Yoruba myth, Woyengi on an Ijaw tale, and Everyman on Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s twentieth-century version of the English medieval play. The focus here will be on Everyman, anchored as it is in a morality tradition that has become acclimatized to a variety of environments. This article proposes to examine some of Everyman’s transformations from a play of Christian salvation to one of Yoruba reincarnation, its translations into European and African languages in the twentieth century, along with their shuttle movements, migrations and exchanges in and out of Africa. Through Everyman’s avatars, the authorial identity of Obotunde Ijimere and the role of his translator, Ulli Beier, will be investigated, thereby sustaining the debate concerning the status of the artist and his place in the tradition.

Heinemann African Writers Series