Journalist, teacher, and author Femi Akintunde-Johnson will on October 30 celebrate his 60th birthday with a colloquium and book launch.
The books to be launched include:
An anthology of poems: the first of such literary work Mr Akintunde-Johnson fondly called by many FAJ will write. It is composed of 108 pages and covers the first 40 years of his life, otherwise named the “Gestation Period”.
The second is a 110-page compilation of six stories and a play, themed differently and cutting across different epochs.
The third is a 170-page memoir capturing the circumstances that led to his detention at Kirikiri Maximum Prison. It also captures in graphic illustrations his struggles, resilience, and elastic spirit.
Lastly is another memoir which is a recount of the vicissitudes faced during Akintunde-Johnson’s odyssey at the defunct FAME magazine. This encompasses the birthing, challenges, and the loss of the FAME project between 1991 and 1997 – with the story sewn in lucid prose and digestible form to give a compelling, hard-to-put down expository read. The 300-plus-page book details several events, actions, and reactions.
All books are to be available in digital and paperback versions.
Also, the colloquium, conceptualised as a storytelling format, is themed, “Did Anything Good Come Out of The ‘60s? – Lessons and memories of Nigeria’s formative decade.”
Akintunde-Johnson started as an entertainment journalist with The PUNCH and later Climax magazine between 1988 and 1991. He rose to become editor of Climax. He held the same position, and as editor-in-chief in four magazines he co-founded. They are FAME, National Encomium, New Treasure, and Treasure People & Life.
He masterminded the establishment of four of Nigeria’s most celebrated awards: FAME Music Awards (FMA), The Movie Awards (THEMA), The Reel Awards, and Awards For Musical Excellence in Nigeria, (AMEN).
