Nigeria's Kola Tubosun wins Premio Ostana award for Mother Tongue Literature

Writer, Kola Tunbosun, has won the PremioOstana International Award for Scriptures in the Mother Tongue, 2016 (Il Premio Ostana Internazionale Scritture in Lingua Madre 2016).

The Prize which is organized by the Culture of the Chambra D’Oc in the town of Ostana (Cuneo, Italy). It is given for the defense of an indigenous language, and for educational and informative activities by the recipient to protect it.

The eight edition of the Prize Ceremony will be held from June, 2 to June 5, 2016 in Italy, in collaboration with the Municipality of Ostana. Past winners of this International Prize include Jaques Thiers (2015), Lance David Henson (2014), Mehmet Altun (2013), Harkaitz Cano (2011), Witi Tame Ihimaera (2010), among many notable others.

By this feat, Tuboson has made history by becoming the first African recepient of the Award since the inception of the award.

Tuboson was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, in September, 1981, and studied Linguistics at the University of Ibadan before proceeding to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for his MA in 2012. He was awarded a Fulbright fellowship/scholarship in 2009.

In early 2012, he founded the Tweet Yoruba Movement and the annual “Tweet Yoruba Day” to pressurize Twitter into making the platform useable for Yoruba speakers, and to create awareness for the usage of Yoruba on the internet respectively. In August 2014, Twitter facilitated Yoruba translation. TubÍsun has been an active translator on several internet portals previously available only in English and the world’s ‘main languages’.

Whilst working as an English teacher in Lagos, Nigeria, Tubosun’s recorded many feats which include helping to record the first translation of The Nigerian Constitution in Yoruba.

In January 2015, he founded YorubaName.com, a portal to document all the names in Yorùbálanguage with hopes of improving the stock of the language and its use on the internet. One of the project’s initial accomplishments is to release a free tone-marking keyboard software to allow more appropriate writing of Yoruba on the internet and save it from extinction. He is currently the head of lexicography on the project, among other advisory roles.

In recognition of his work and dedication, In October 2015, he was appointed as Speech Linguistic Project Manager at Google (Nigeria).

This role involves helping the company realise a number of language-related goals on the continent and around the world.

As a writer, Tubosun has published fiction, non-fiction, and poetry online and in print, in Africa and beyond. He has been published in Sentinel Poetry Quarterly, Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, Sentinel Nigeria, Klorofyl,Eye Socket Journal,Nigerianstalk.org, Guardian UK, Ake Review, Saraba Magazine, Jalada Magazine, and several other publications. His chapbook of poems Attempted Speech & Other Fatherhood Poems was released for free download in September, 2015.

He has translated (and continues to translate) literary and non-literary work from English to Yoruba and from Yoruba into English. His translation of Sarah Manyika’s short story “A Woman in the Orange Dress” was featured in the Cassava Republic’s multimedia Valentine Anthologyin February 2015. His non-fiction piece, Class Sessions, was published in the Jalada Magazine’s Language Issue (September, 2015). He has also published translated works in Yoruba for the International Literary Quaterly, Ake Review, and elsewhere.