The Oracle of the Island of Biafuluwa

The visit of Dokita Anamali from Lagos to a small country town in Nigeria has an electrifying effect on the inhabitants. When he tells a spellbound audience about a mysterious island called Biafuluwa, where an elderly sage called the Obinetiti lives who dispenses wisdom and justice, a young teenager named Wadi resolves to leave for the island and discover the meaning of life and mankind for himself. At the feet of the master, Wadi learns about many things including oppression, survival and the need for opposing groups to communicate. He witnesses a political upheaval, discovers the power of rhetoric, and returns home to a rapturous welcome, the tears of his mother and the offer of honours and a diplomatic career. Professor Debe Osaji was born in the early 1930s at Ossomala Ose Ugbolu in what is now the Delta State of Nigeria. With a Canadian Government Scholarship, he studied at Université Laval, Québec, where he obtained BA (1966), MA (1968) and PhD (1970) in French Literature and Sociolinguistics. He taught at the University of Lagos in Nigeria from 1970 to 2004. He is married and a father of five boys. Professor Osaji is now resident in the UK and his new career is as a writer.