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Wole Soyinka
A Yoruba born in Western Nigeria (in 1934) and educated in Ibadan, and Leeds Universiy England, Wole Soyinka was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature - in 1986. He has authored over forty works in the medium of plays, novels, poetry, essays, and biographies, many of which have received world-wide translations as well as theatre performances. He is active on artistic, academic and Human Rights organisations such as the International Theatre Institute, UNESCO, the International Parliament of Writers etc. He is recipient of numerous academic and national honours, and holds traditional titles in his own country. Wole Soyinka continues to lecture extensively within Nigeria and internationally, and currently holds positions as Emeritus Professor at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, Hutchins Fellow, Harvard University, USA, and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, UK. He currently teaches at New York University, Abu Dhabi, where he is Arts Professor of Drama.

The Lion and the Jewel; Death and the King’s Horseman are among his most celebrated plays while his poems are collected in  IDANRE; MANDELA’S EARTH and Other Poems; SAMARKAND and Other Markets I Have Known. His autobiographical works encompassing childhood, youth and adult political and literary activities, comprise : AKE, The Years of Childhood; IBADAN The Penkelemes Years; YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN.  His corpus of prose fiction includes The Interpreters; Season of Anomie and  CHRONICLES from the Land of the Happiest People in the World  (BookCraft). His most recent play, CANTICLES  for a Pyre Foretold was premiered in 2024 simultaneously in Abu Dhabi, UAE,  and Ibadan, Nigeria. 

He is married, with children, and lives in Ijegba, ABEOKUTA, Ogun State, Nigeria.


 Simona-Mirela-Miculescu

Amb. Simona-Mirela Miculescu is currently holding the position of President of the 42nd UNESCO General Conference (2023-2025), first Romanian ever to lead a governing body of this organization during the more than 69 years of Romania’s membership, the third Romanian – after Nicolae Titulescu and Corneliu Mănescu – to preside over a UN elected body, and the fifth woman in the 80-years history of UNESCO in this position.

Amb. Miculescu became Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Delegate of Romania to UNESCO in January 2021, after ending her tenure as Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Office in Belgrade (2015 -2020).

Prior to this, she was the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Romania to the United Nations, between 2008 and 2015. During her term in New York, amb. Miculescu held several positions including: Vice-President of the UNICEF Executive Board, Vice-President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Vice-President of the Bureau of the Francophonie, Chair of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee of the General Assembly during its 66th Session, Vice-President of the UN General Assembly for its 68th Session, and Chair of the 53rd Session of the UN Commission for Social Development.

Amb. Miculescu’s more than 34 years of diplomatic career include the positions of Spokesperson for the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Senior Media Advisor to the Minister (1993 and 1999), Director of the Press Department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1994 and 2008), Press Secretary of the Embassy of Romania to the US (1994-1998), or Senior Public Information Officer at the Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo (1999-2000).

Between 2000 and 2004, she served as Foreign Policy Adviser to the President of Romania, with rank of minister.

Between 2006 and 2007, she acted as Senior Advisor for Public Outreach to the Government of Iraq, within a USAID-funded project.

Amb. Miculescu holds the titles of Doctor Honoris Causa Beneficiorum Publicorum of the Western University in Timișoara, as well as the title of Doctor Magna Cum Laudae of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. This is due to the fact that, in parallel with her diplomatic career, she has developed a rich academic and public communication experience, that includes teaching international public relations courses at two universities in Romania, as well as publishing several books and articles on related topics. In her country, she is recognized also as one of the best experts in the field of international public relations management, being appreciated especially due to the elaboration of the first university curriculum on this subject, a study program currently used by several universities.

Amb. Simona Miculescu has also recorded other firsts throughout her career, being: the first female Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1993), the creator and coordinator of Romania's first official website on the Internet (1995), the author of the first Romanian university course on International Public Relations (2001), the first woman in Romania's diplomatic history to be granted the diplomatic rank of Ambassador (2002), the first woman Ambassador of Romania to the United Nations (2008), the first Romanian female diplomat to obtain a high-ranking position - Representative of the UN Secretary General - within the UN Secretariat (2015), the first woman Ambassador of Romania to UNESCO (2021).

Amb. Simona-Mirela Miculescu is married, has two children, and two grandchildren.

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Event in English, with translation into Romanian
Nigeria

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