Visiting authors (and tree-planters at the grove) include Wole Soyinka, Yasar Kemal, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Seamus Heaney, Amos Oz, Izzat al-Ghazzawi, Bei Dao, Hans Blix and Thor Heyerdahl.
Lola is married to Olaokun Soyinka, a medical doctor and the son of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.
Osumare perform in concert halls all over Europe and also in great literature events like the readings of Professor Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize Winner) in Germany.
A major international project that Paul Stallan is leading with practice partner Alistair Brand is the new African University of the Creative Arts (AUCA) in Lagos, Nigeria working with Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka chairman of AUCA.
Wole Soyinka, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts (appointed in September 1996)
Till date a host of African writers have featured at the conference including Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chinweizu, Dennis Brutus, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Elechi Amadi, Ken Saro Wiwa, Chukwuemeka Ike, Nurrudin Farah, Syl Cheney Coker, to mention a few.
Current trends in Transnational studies also reflect the growing importance of post-colonial literary figures such as Giannina Braschi, J. M. Coetzee, Maryse Condé, Earl Lovelace, V. S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, Wole Soyinka.
As a student he was particularly influenced by Nigerian literary luminaries like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Cyprian Ekwensi and other African writers like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
It has featured the works of Wole Soyinka, Segun Afolabi, Uche James Iroha, Funmi Iyanda, Dinaw Mengestu, Barbara Murray, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jackee Budesta Batanda, Helon Habila, Tosin Oshinowo, Patrice Nganang, Jide Alakija, and a plethora of other writers and graphical artists.
A Lagosian by birth, he studied acting at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, earning a diploma in 1965, after which he appeared in many shows on the London Stage, including the Royal Court Theatre production of Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel, and Shakespeare's Macbeth, with the late Sir Alec Guinness as Macbeth and the late Simone Signoret as Lady Macbeth.
Many have won accolades for their work, including Daniel O. Fagunwa, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Elechi Amadi and Ben Okri.
Farafina Magazine has featured the works of Wole Soyinka, Segun Afolabi, Uche James Iroha, Funmi Iyanda, Dinaw Mengestu, Barbara Murray, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jackee Budesta Batanda, Helon Habila, Tosin Oshinowo, Patrice Nganang, Jide Alakija, Nnedi Okorafor and a plethora of other writers and graphical artists.