The death on Wednesday, 20 July, of our friend, compatriot and fellow writer, Kole Omotoso, came to us with a great shock. But in our sadness we give thanks for his life and his work. “We” here refers to the moribund Positive Review-Ibadan Ife Collective.

By a few years, Kole was the oldest among us. He also came to writing as a serious, committed and lifelong project before all of us.

But among us, he was the freest spirit, the most maverick and unpredictable in his positions and actions!

These facts are reflected powerfully and ineluctably in perhaps his two best known and most controversial works, the masterpiece of the hybrid genre of “faction”, Just Before Dawn and Season of Migration to the South, a searing political and intellectual reminiscence on the historic emergence of the Nigerian Diaspora in Africa and the rest of the world.

There are, of course, his other works. And there is his family, the centering, sacramental core of his life: Akin, Pelayo and Yewande, words cannot express our solidarity with you in your loss.

Kole is the first in our group to go, absolutely without our permission and thus in his departure, the free spirit has been true to form. But you were here, Bankole Omotoso, you were here!

Biodun Jeyifo
Yemi Ogunbiyi
John Ohiorhenuan
Femi Osofisan
(For and on behalf of The Positive Review Collective)