NOT EVEN GOD IS RIPE ENOUGH

Bakare Gbadamosi is a Yoruba poet, anthropologist, and short story writer born in 1930 in Osogbo, Nigeria. Gbadamosi is known for his work on collecting and translating Yoruba folk tales and traditional poetry. Alongside writing his own poetry, he also worked as a stagehand and actor, collaborating with famous dramatist, Duro Ladipo, in a theatre group in Osogbo. In the late 1960s, he was employed by the Nigerian Museum as an ethnographer in Lagos.

Ulli Beier was born in 1922 in Germany. He attended the University of London where he gained an interest in traditional Yoruba culture, launching his career as a leading scholar of literature, drama and poetry in Nigeria. He was also a successful editor, translator, and writer. In 1961, he co-founded the Mbari Artists and Writers Club in Ibadan, an influential meeting point for writers to share and perform their work. Its members included Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Christopher Okigbo. Beier died in 2011.