Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún at Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 4.

Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún wrapped up the second day of Season 4 of Afrolit Sans Frontières from Lagos, Nigeria on June 30, 2020. He was hosted by Troy Onyango.

Afrolit Sans Frontières, a virtual literary festival for writers of African origin, started as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic international lockdown. The festival format is two sessions a day on Instagram Live with an artist moderated by a host who also fields questions from audience members. Season 1, curated by founder Zukiswa Wanner ran from March 23-30 while Season 2 co-curated by the founder and Maaza Mengiste ran from April 20-27, 2020. Season 3 co-curated by Mohale Mashigo and Zukiswa Wanner ran from May 25 – June 1.

Season 4 which started on June 29, has already had Ngwatilo Mawiyoo in Nairobi, Kenya and Hannibal Tabu in Los Angeles, USA. The second day of the festival started off with Lamelle Shaw in Johannesburg, South Africa before Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún ended proceedings from Lagos.

Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian writer and linguist. His debut collection of poetry Edwardsville by Heart was published by Wisdom’s Bottom Press, Oxford, in 2018. He was a Miles Morland Foundation Scholar in 2019 and has worked as a literary translator, editor, lexicographer over many years. His work has been published in African Writer, Aké Review, Brittle Paper, International Literary Quarterly, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, Jalada, Popula, Saraba Magazine, The Guardian (Nigerian and UK), ThisisAfrica, among others. He’s currently a Chevening Research Fellow at the British Library in London and can be found at kolatubosun.com.

The Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún session, conducted by Troy Onyango, included discussions about the former’s experiences with Wole Soyinka, how his debut poetry collection came to being, his Miles Morland Fellowship journey, as well as how he and many others influenced Twitter to have Yoruba as one of its official languages. He read from his collection Edwardsville by Heart as well as work that was still in progress.

You can watch the whole exchange in the below video.