F. Abiola Irele

Francis Abiola Irele (commonly Abiola Irele, born 1936) is a Nigerian academic who has been called the doyen of Africanist literary scholars worldwide. He is currently Provost at the newly-founded Kwara State University in Ilorin, Nigeria. ^[1] Before moving back to Nigeria, Irele was Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.^[2]^[3]

Irele graduated from Ibadan University in 1960. Immediately after graduation, he went to Paris to learn French and completed a Ph.D in French at the University of Paris, Sorbonne in 1966. He held teaching positions at the University of Ghana, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), and University of Ibadan. In 1989, he moved to Ohio State University in the U.S. as Professor of African, French and Comparative Literature.

Publications

Irele's writing includes:

The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora, Oxford University Press (paperback 2001) ISBN 0195086198
The African Experience in Literature and Ideology, Indiana Univ Press (reprint 1990), ISBN 0253331242

He is joint editor with Simon Gikandi of The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature, Cambridge University Press (2004), ISBN 0-521-59434-0

Persondata
Name	Irele, F. Abiola
Alternative names	Abiola Irele, Francis Irele
Short description	Literary critic, professor, editor
Date of birth	May 22, 1936
Place of birth	Ibadan, Nigeria
Date of death
Place of death

F. Abiola Irele

Publications

Further reading

Notes