Tejumola Olaniyan, the Louis Durham Mead Professor in English and the Wole Soyinka Humanities Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who died on Saturday 30 November, 2019 was buried today in Madison, the United States. TheNEWS magazine celebrates Professor Olaniyan with this special online edition in which his teacher, professional colleagues, friends and well-wishers pay glowing tribute.
Last honour: Casket bearing Professor Tejumola’s remains. Photo credit: Ndirangu Wachanga
I am Devastated
Wole Soyinka
Teju’s exit is devastating and, even now, still incomprehensible. I was with him in Cambridge – with Awam Amkpa, Okey Indibe, Mrs. Irele, Skip Gates, Bankole Olayebi- only a week ago. Not one wisp of premonition that we had all been fortuitously brought together for the implacable rites of a Last Supper. I deeply mourn with the wife and the family. It is such a cruel order of going.
