Femi Osofisan

Femi Osofisan

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan (born June 16, 1946), known as Femi Osofisan or F.O., is a Nigerian writer noted for his critique of societal problems and his use of African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his plays.

Quotes

Women of Owu (2006)

• "All your shrines drenched in the blood Of your worshippers/All your sacred symbols wiped out by fire!"
  • Page 6

• Nowadays, when the strong fight the weak, it's called a Liberation War to free the weak from oppression.
  • Page 8

• Nowadays, in the new world, it is suicide to be weak.
  • Page 8.

• I ask you- without a shrine, without worshippers, what is a god?
  • Page 9

• "When fate decided to strike you down, what amount of crying can help?"
  • Erelu Page 10

• "It's us, not the gods, who created war. It's us, we human beings, who can kill it."
  • Chorus Leader Page 15

• "The gods are out to punish human beings who she claims ‘learn only from suffering and pain."
  • Page 21.

• Some words are such that when we hear them, all the light inside us dies at once, and our smiling daylight turns into the bleakness of night.
  • Orisaye Page 27.

• I lit the torch so I will not have to grope my way to the camp where I shall be married to my enemy, that handsome butcher of our people.
  • Pages 27-8.

• "Insanity is the drug of misery."
  • Chorus Page 28

• The gods! Which gods! Do you still trust any of them after this? Or have you quickly forgotten what they told us about Anlugbua just now? No, women, there is no shelter anywhere but in ourselves! Each of us has become our own god.
  • Page 33.

• Happiness is a fake. The gods employ it as a mask to trick us each time they are about to plunge us into grief.
  • Page 37

• Don't speak like that, my child. Death is sweet, we think. But it is easier to talk of it, than to welcome it. We do not know what is on the other side, whether it is better or worse than here. Whereas even at its most bitter, life offers hope at least, which death does not.
  • Erelu Pages 41-2,

• Even in misfortune, which levels everyone, the potions are unequal: we dare not tell you what we believe will becoming to us. [
  • Chorus Leader Page 42,

• My daughter, you won't like to hear this but my advice is- do like the reed in the bush. Stand and strut in good weather. But when it storms, learn also to bend.
  • Erelu, Page 42.

• "When you have lost a war, you have lost, and there's nothing you can do about it but accept the consequences."
  • Gesinde Page 44

• It was my son your wife bewitched and led us to this calamity
  • Page 47.

• Anger and desire are twin sisters in this drama we call love, two kernels in the same nut!
  • Page 48.

• Anyone can kill. But it is not everybody who can forgive, or who can be just, as I know you are.
  • page 51.

• An artist has only his dreams. He has no power.
  • Maye, Page 52.

• "When Mother Goat nods at the sonorous sound of the drum, she is not dancing! It is because each time it sounds, she recognizes the wailing of the leather!"
  • Iyunloye Page 55

• [T]he skin that graces the king's shoulders, the leopard knows who supplied it. When mother Goat nods at the sonorous sound of the drum, she is not dancing! It is because, each time it sounds, she recognizes the wailing of the leather!
  • Page 55.

• It is the fate of the conquered to toil for the strong! That is the logic of war, the logic of defeat!
  • Erelu Page 55

• Beauty makes all women vulnerable to the greed of men
  • Page 57.

• War never ends, but only moves to another place?
  • Page 58.

• "How can you claim to be strong, when your minds are so feeble."
  • Erelu Page 59

• Let no one count herself lucky till she finds herself on her death bed.
  • Page 60

• Home is where every traveller returns after a journey, however long. When night falls, the visitor must take his leave of his hosts.
  • Page 65.

• No swimmer, however good, can swim beyond the rim of the world.
  • Page 65

• A father can only chew for a child; he cannot swallow for her.
  • Erelu when possessed by the spirit of Anlugbua Page 66.

• "It is the rulers who write story - It is the hunters who compose the story of the hunt - It is the revellers, not the slaughtered cows, who record the fable of the feast."
  • Cheer Leader 2 and 1 Page 66

• "Then the deer must train themselves to seize the gun from their hunters! The cows to take over the narration of their own story."
  • Erelu when possessed by the spirit of Anlugbua Page 66

External Links

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