Harry Olúdáre Garuba (6 April 1958 – 28 February 2020) was a Nigerian-born writer of poetry and a professor of African Studies and English at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

Biography

Garuba was born 8 April 1958 in

Akure Akure is a city in south-western Nigeria. It is the capital and largest city of Ondo State. The city had a population of 403,000 as at the 2006 population census. History Pre 1914 Rock engravings dating back to the Mesolithic period, hav ...

, southwest Nigeria. At 17 he was accepted to study English at a southwestern Nigeria university, the

University of Ibadan The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university in Ibadan, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, one of many colleges within the University of London. It became an independent university in 196 ...

. He graduated with a BA honours degree and continued to earn his master's degree. In 1988 he graduated from the same university with his PhD. After getting his degree, he taught at Ibadan for fifteen years before finally emigrating to South Africa to teach at the

University of Zululand The University of Zululand or UniZulu is the only comprehensive tertiary educational institution north of the Tugela River in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Its new status is in accordance with South Africa's National Plan for Higher Education ...

's English department. In 2001, he moved to the

where he would teach until 2019. While at the

, Garuba published heavily in the fields of Africa and post colonial literature. Garuba was a professor at the University of Cape Town, with a joint appointment in the English Department and the Centre for African Studies. He was also a member of the

Heinemann African Writers Series The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of books written by African novelists, poets and politicians. Published by Heinemann (publisher), Heinemann, 359 books appeared in the series between 1962 and 2003. The series has provided an int ...

editorial advisory board. Garuba mainly focused in African and postcolonial literatures. Garuba served as the acting dean of the Faculty of Humanities. He died from leukemia on 28 February 2020.

Publications

In 1982, Garuba published his first collection of poetry, ''Shadow and dream and other poems''. At 24, he was considered one of Nigeria's most outstanding poets. This collection was the first runner up for the inaugural Okigbo Award in 1987, established by

Wole Soyinka Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...

in honour of

Christopher Okigbo Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (16 August 1932 – 1967) was a Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet an ...

(the winner was

Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard (15 December 1938 – 4 July 2009) was a Congolese politician and poet. Having previously served as Minister of Higher Education and Minister of Arts and Culture, he was Minister of Hydrocarbons in the government of Co ...

's ''La Tradition du Songe''. In 2017 he published his second collection, ''Animist Chants and Memorials: Poems''. This collection was divided up in three parts, and included personal reflections, historical paradoxes and dialogues.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garuba, Harry 1958 births 2020 deaths Academic staff of the University of Cape Town Nigerian educators Nigerian poets Nigerian writers People from Akure South African people of Nigerian descent