Dapo Adeniyi is a Nigerian writer, publisher, filmmaker, literary translator, journalist and cultural entrepreneur whose work has extended across broadcasting, literature, visual art, cinema and cultural-heritage development. Over several decades, he has helped to document, interpret and present African creative achievement to audiences in Nigeria and internationally.

He studied Theatre Arts at the University of Ibadan, where he established the literary magazine River Prawn. His professional career began in radio and television, and his first play was broadcast by the BBC World Service in 1986. At Channels Television in Lagos, he was the pioneer producer and presenter of Arthouse, Arts Review, an arts and culture segment of the station’s flagship News at Ten. In 1994, he became a British Council Fellow at Downing College, University of Cambridge. He subsequently worked as Arts and Culture Editor at the Daily Times in Lagos and as a visiting editor at The Times Literary Supplement in London.

Adeniyi became an influential figure in African arts and literary journalism as Editor-in-Chief of Glendora Review, one of the important African cultural journals of the 1990s. The publication created a meeting place for writers, artists, scholars and cultural thinkers working within Africa and across its diaspora. After leaving Glendora Review, he established Position African World Review in 2001, continuing his commitment to the documentation and critical examination of African literature, visual art, performance and cultural life.

His contribution to African literature includes his English translation of D. O. Fagunwa’s celebrated Yoruba-language novel Ìrìnkèrindò nínú Igbó Elégbèje. Published by Obafemi Awolowo University Press in 1994 as Expedition to the Mount of Thought: The Third Saga, the translation helped to make another major part of Fagunwa’s imaginative universe available to English-language readers.

As a filmmaker, Adeniyi wrote, executive-produced and directed Ake: The Years of Childhood, a screen adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s renowned childhood memoir. The production developed from an earlier television-adaptation initiative into a feature film involving an extensive cast and locations in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. Ake was screened in Lagos and presented at the Festival International du Film Panafricain in Cannes in 2016.

His engagement with international cinema continued when he was appointed President of the Short Documentary and Fiction Jury at the Festival International du Film Panafricain in Cannes in 2018. He is also the founding Festival Director of the Lekki International Film Festival, established as a platform for film screenings, professional exchange, creative education and the recognition of African and international filmmakers.

Beyond literature and cinema, Adeniyi has contributed extensively to the documentation and promotion of modern African art. His work has included cultural research, publishing, curatorial writing and service on visual-art juries, including the jury of Nigeria’s Life in My City Art Festival. Through books, journals, exhibitions and film projects, he has worked closely with artists, writers and cultural institutions to preserve important creative histories and bring them to wider public attention.

Through his work as a broadcaster, translator, editor, publisher, filmmaker and cultural organiser, Dapo Adeniyi has consistently explored how African creative traditions can be preserved without becoming static, and how they can be carried into new languages, media, technologies and international spaces. His career represents an enduring commitment to African cultural memory and to the writers, artists, filmmakers and institutions through which that memory continues to live.