Noma  award
<<

ing Thandifea  Mkandawire heac
of  the  UN research  institute  on
social  development,  Kole
Omotoso  of  the  university  of
Western  Cape,  a  novelist,  and
Mary  Jay  of  the  African  Books
collective  as  members,  also
singled  out Antjie  Krog's Coun-
try of My Skull. (Johanneseburg:
Random  House  South  Africa
(Pty) Ltd,  1998) for  Honourable
Mention. Krog is a poet and jour-
nalist who reported on the South
African  Truth  Commission^
Through  witness  stories,  inter-
views  with  psychologists,  the
Truth  Commissioners,  and  oth-
ers,  she vividly offered an under-
standing  of  the  Truth  Commis-
sion, and  through that, the ne\
South Africa.

tor of

For 
culture i-
NIGERIA'S pioneer Federal  Director
of  Culture,  Dr. Garba Ashiwaju  has
passed on. He was aged 65. He died
in the early hours of Monday March
13,  2000  in  Lagos  following  a  brief
illness.

The death occurred shortly after
his assumption of office  as General
Manager of the Musical Society of Ni-
geria  (MUSON) Centre. He was bur-
ied at a Lagos cemetary on Monday
the 20th of March.

Dr. Ashiwaju will be best remem-
bered  for his tenure  as  head  of  the
FESTAC International  Festival  Sec-
retariat.  His time  as  Federal  Direc-
tor of Culture witnessed the comple-
tion of the National Theatre complex
in Lagos, the management of which
fell on his hands for some years.

Also  he  was  the  moving  spirit
behind  the  well-known  cultural
journal  Nigeria  Magazine.

In a condolence letter to his wife
Mrs.  Aneliese  Ashiwaju,  President
Olusegun  Obasanjo  paid  tribute  to
a man who  brought  to  bear on  his
various  assignments  his  immense
scholarship  and  determination  to
situate  culture  at  the  centre  of  na-
tional  development'.

ISSUE  FIVE  •  2000  •  GLENDORA  BOOKS  SUPPLEMENT

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a  conference  on

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sessions, boot? exhibitions,  drama  and
performance  of  oral  literature.  The
preoidin<> chairs we a.  Egypt  an  novelist,
Nawal  El Sadawi,  Kenyan  writer  N'gugi
Wa Tluono  Q, Uhana  s tormer  minister
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om  or  tru  conference  venues  the
conference  climaxed  with  a  dilate
performance  session before  an  audi-
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institute of Visual Art lectures

THE  institute of Visual Art and Culture
launched its lecture series under a year
2000 programme, set to Increase dialogue
and exchange ideas in the visual arts and
culture  in  Nigeria  by inviting  interna-
tional curators,  critics and art  histori-
ans to be guest speakers'.

ThelVACco-ordinatorsare  BisiSilva
and Sinmi Ogunsanya. According to Bisi
Silva  one  of  the  motivations  for  the
programme is to provide insight into art

practices  in  countries  as diverse  as Ja-
pan,  South Africa, Cuba and England.
The  first  in  the  series  toured  Nige-
rian  cities  - Zaria,  Enugu  and  Lagos -
during  the  third  week  of  March, 2000.
Speaker, Katy Deepwell, a UK-based art-
ist and writer, also editor of N. Paradoxa
a feminist journal, spoke on the contri-
butions of women artists to the contem-
porary visual arts.