Nigerian Playwright Wins £37,092 UK Scholarship.

Nigerian Playwright Wins £37,092 UK Scholarship.

Nigerian playwright and filmmaker Ayọ̀dẹ́jì Àjàdí has secured the £37,092 Kowitz Scholarship to study Creative Scriptwriting at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the United Kingdom.

Àjàdí won the scholarship with his stage play, Sons of Anan, a work inspired by African mythology and tradition that examines the tension between inherited beliefs and contemporary realities.

The play explores themes including power, gender and human relationships and was previously staged at the Muson Centre in Lagos. Àjàdí said he once questioned whether the production had been worth the financial and personal sacrifices involved.

The playwright said the same work that had left him dealing with debt, pain and uncertainty eventually became the piece he submitted for the Kowitz Scholarship and helped him secure the award.

The scholarship will enable Àjàdí to undertake postgraduate studies in Creative Writing: Scriptwriting at UEA, an institution recognized for its creative writing programme and associated with writers including Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Anne Enright, John Boyne and Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀.

Àjàdí, a 2017 Economics graduate of Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, has written and directed stage plays and short films. His work spans theatre and film, while he has also taught film and writing related courses.

In a statement about the scholarship, he said the award would give him an opportunity to deepen his craft while continuing to explore the stories, histories and contradictions that influence his work.

He added that his next phase would involve developing his creative practice in the UK while bringing the African experiences that have shaped his storytelling into a new academic environment.

The University of East Anglia launched its first MA in Creative Writing in 1970 and has since developed an international reputation in literary education, with alumni working across fiction, poetry and screenwriting.