21 Facts About Ulli Beier

Chief Horst Ulrich Beier, commonly known as Ulli Beier, was a German editor, writer and scholar who had a pioneering role in developing the Western world's understanding of literature, drama and poetry in Nigeria, as well as in Papua New Guinea.

Ulli Beier was born to a Jewish family in Glowitz, Weimar Germany, in July 1922.

Ulli Beier's father was a medical doctor and an appreciator of art, who reared his son to embrace the arts.

In Palestine, while his family were briefly detained as enemy aliens by the British authorities, Beier earned a BA as an external student from the University of London.

Ulli Beier later moved to London, England, to earn a graduate degree in Phonetics.

Ulli Beier found veterans were being given precedence in academic jobs and searched widely for a position.

In 1950, they both moved to Nigeria, where Ulli Beier had been hired at the University of Ibadan to teach Phonetics.

Ulli Beier married the artist Georgina Betts, an Englishwoman from London who was working in Nigeria.

In 1956, after visiting the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris, France, organized by Presence Africaine at the Sorbonne, Ulli Beier returned to Ibadan with more ideas.

Later in 1961, Ulli Beier co-founded the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, Ibadan, a place for new writers, dramatists and artists, to meet and perform their work.

Ulli Beier was known for his work in translating traditional Nigerian literary works into English.

Ulli Beier translated the plays of such Nigerian dramatists as Duro Ladipo and published Modern Poetry, an anthology of African poems.

Ulli Beier wrote his own plays, published under the name "Obotunde Ijimere".

Ulli Beier later claimed that his Ijimere writing "just 'happened'", but Beier actively sought to write under the identities of his alter egos.

Ulli Beier found international venues for taking the native artwork to the world.

Ulli Beier's efforts have been described as significant in facilitating the emergence of Papua New Guinean literature.

Ulli Beier returned to Nigeria in 1971 to teach at Institute of African Studies, University of Ife, Ile-Ife.

Ulli Beier remained in post for three years, during which time he published the Pan African Pocket Poets series.

Ulli Beier lived in Sydney, Australia, with his wife Georgina Ulli Beier.

Ulli Beier died at home in the Annandale neighborhood, at the age of 88, on 3 April 2011.

Ulli Beier makes a guest appearance in the novel Eteka: Rise of the Imamba in the Bandung chapter, as a mentor to the fictional character Oladele.