Akinwumi Isola was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, and is a retired professor of Yoruba literature at Obafemi Awolowo University. He was a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and has received the Nigerian National Order of Merit. He is the author of five plays and three novels, including Madame Tinubu, and translator of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Aké: The Years of Childhood into Yoruba. He also directed the production of many plays and films. He died in 2018, at age 79.