CALL FOR PAPERS: MEDICINE AND LITERATURE WITHOUT BORDERS: HEALTH, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE WRITINGS OF WALE OKEDIRAN

CELEBRATING THE WRITER, MEDICAL PRACTITIONER AND LITERARY ADMINISTRATOR, DR. WALE OKEDIRAN, IN AN UPCOMING BOOK

Dr. Wale Okediran is one of the most acclaimed physician-writers in Nigeria, whose career bestrides the domains of medicine, literature and politics. 

Dr. Okediran’s life, as demonstrated in his writings, is a vibrant intersection of the multifarious and disparate experiences that define human existence. Trained and practised as a physician, Okediran eventually developed a lifelong commitment to creative writing and political practice. 

His engagements as a politician underscore his humanistic principles, possibly shaped by his twin career of medicine and literature.

 In 2001, Professor Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale, the first Professor of Literature and Medicine in Nigeria, defended his PhD thesis on the creative works of Nigerian physician-writers in the Department of English, University of Ibadan, which featured the work of Wale Okediran. 

Like the Russian physician-writer, Anton Chekhov, who declares that “medicine is my lawful, wedded wife and literature is my mistress”, Okediran has remarkably established the symbiotic relationship between medicine and literature both in his writings and social activities. Besides the orthodox literary productions, he has also ventured into similar domains of writings like newspaper column, biographical narratives and travel writing. 

The utilitarian and didactic import of his writings manifest in his ability to imagine a better social order by making suggestion for human and societal improvement. 

Beyond the realm of conventional political practice, Dr Okediran has brought his managerial skill to bear in arts administration.

 Over the years, Okediran has remained an exemplary literary administrator with his decades of experience as State Chairman, Treasurer, General Secretary and President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). He was Chairman of the Nigeria Book Fair Trust (NIBFT) and current Secretary-General of the Pan-African Writers’ Association (PAWA), with headquarters in Accra, Ghana. 

He is the founder and promoter of the Ebedi International Writers Residency in Iseyin, Oyo State. Dr. Okediran has inspired national and international networking and collaborations in literary engagements. 

Dr. Wale Okediran, in less than a year to mark the milestone age of ‘three scores plus ten,’ has lived a life entirely devoted to promoting literature, national and international cooperation in the areas of literary/cultural humanities. 

Dr Wale Okediran has written and published a good number of novels, short stories collections, children’s literature, biographies and travelogues, some of which have won acclaimed literary prizes, ranging from the Association of Nigerian Authors(ANA) prizes to the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. 

His popularly acclaimed political thriller, Tenants of the House, a fictional recreation of his experience as an elected member of the Nigerian parliament between 2003-2007, was later produced by him into a film of the same title directed by the famous film auteur, Kunle Afolayan and made available on NETFLIX. 

  

Dr Wale Okediran is also a public intellectual, and has contributed significantly to conferences, seminars, colloquiums and workshops on different topical issues, especially on the intersection between medicine and literature, also broadly known as the medical humanities, as well as the praxis of literature in conversation with politics.  

It is, therefore, imperative that a man of such creative profundity and productivity, who has contributed to so many divergent but intersecting areas of life, should be examined and re-examined to foreground his place in knowledge productions in his chosen fields of practices.

 This call for chapters seeks to explore Dr Wale Okediran’s rich multidisciplinary contributions to literature, medicine, cultural studies and political discourse. 

A very significant thrust of this book is how his creative imaginations, newspaper articles, biographical, travel writings have, over the years, contributed to knowledge productions in the field of literature and medicine in Nigeria and Africa. 

Therefore, contributions that will be featured into the proposed book are to revolve round (but not limited to) the following sub-themes: 

1. Social Vision and Wale Okediran’s Work 

2. Diseases, Medicalisation and Wale Okediran’s Writings  

3. Medical Ethics, the Therapeutic Relationship and Wale Okediran’s Writings 

4. The Medical Humanities, Bibliotherapy, Scriptotherapy and Wale Okediran’s Writings  

5. Health, Medical Consciousness and Wale Okediran’s Medical Columns 

6. Politics and Social Justice in Wole Okediran’s Writings   

7. The Art of Wale Okediran’s Short Stories

8. Children in Wale Okediran’s Creative Oeuvres 

9. The Travelogues of Wale Okediran

10. Travel Writing as Literature

11. The Writer as a Biographer

12. Wale Okediran’s Popular Literature and the Reading Culture 

13. The Writer in Politics: The Example of Wale Okediran

14. The Writer as a Literary Administrator: The Praxis of Wale Okediran

15. The Nexus between Literature and Film and Wale Okediran’s Place

16. Writers’ Residencies and the Empowerment of Literature

Insightful, well–researched and positioned chapters on the many faces of Wale Okediran’s arts and practices will result in the publication of a book to mark his 70th Birth Anniversary in April, 2025. 

The proposed book, Medicine and Literature Without Borders: Health, Humanities and Social Justice in the Writings of Wale Okediran, will explore the multidisciplinary outlook of Okediran’s literary oeuvres. Interested contributors are to adhere to the MLA 9th edition style sheet. All essays must be in MS word, Times New Roman, 12 fonts with 1.5 line-spacing (except indented quotations, that should be in single line-spacing). The volume of an essay ranges from 5,000 to 7,000 words.

 The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2024. Dedicated and focused personal tribute essays on any of the identified multi-dimensions of the man, Wale Okediran, will also be welcomed.

 All Submissions should be made to the editors through the following email address: waleokediran70@gmail.com

Editors:

Denja Abdullahi, fANA, NPOM

Former President, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Former Director, National Council for Arts & Culture, Abuja, Center for Creative Writing , University of Abuja.

Stephen Kekeghe, PhD

Senior Lecturer, Department of English & Literary Studies, Delta State University, Abraka