“The future is dead to the past, and time is a hunchback walking in circles, tracing the same old paths with new feet.”
– Servio Gbadamosi
Servio Gbadamosi is an award-winning Nigerian poet, publisher, and creative visionary whose work draws deeply from Yorùbá cosmology, African spirituality, and the lived experiences of ordinary people. His poetry has been described as ‘elegiac and visionary—an archive of cultural memory and a compass for collective healing’.
Gbadamosi’s debut poetry collection, A Tributary in Servitude, won the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize in 2015, and was a finalist for the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2018. His second collection, Where the Light Enters You, was a finalist for the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize in 2021, and the inaugural Pan African Writers Association’s Poetry Prize in 2022. Through Noirledge Publishing, which he founded, Gbadamosi has championed underrepresented voices in African literature, with titles like Boom Boom and The Road Does Not End winning the prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature.
Beyond publishing and writing, Gbadamosi is a sought-after speaker at literary festivals and cultural convenings. Through initiatives like The Poems I Love podcast, Noirledge Anthology Series, the fast-growing Ìbàdàn Book and Arts Festival (ÌbàFest), and Laipo Magazine, he continues to shape critical conversations on literature, identity, and the future of the Cultural and Creative Industries.