Join us for an evening with Oludamini Ogunnaike, who will speak about Yoruba Mythology: Stories of the Orisa from West Africa and the Diaspora, written with his brother, Ayodeji Ogunnaike. A conversation with Robert Trent Vinson will follow. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
About the Book: Yoruba mythology is sacred to the religion and culture of the Yoruba people. A primarily oral tradition, its stories revolve around Olodumare, the Supreme Being, and a vast number of divinities or orisa, who govern all aspects of human life and nature.
Yoruba Mythology is, to date, the most comprehensive published collection of more than three hundred myths of this ancient, profound, and beautiful storytelling tradition. Authors Ayodeji Ogunnaike and Oludamini Ogunnaike are uniquely qualified to impart these stories, having spent decades learning, collecting, and studying them. Many are remembered from their own childhood, while many more are the result of yearslong research and encounters with practitioners and elders in and from Nigeria, Cuba, and Brazil.
Alongside the myths of the orisa, the Ogunnaikes also include dozens of tales of cultural significance, such as the founding of Yoruba kingdoms, stories of heroes and other powerful beings, and classic fables. The final section is dedicated to the beloved Ijapa, the Yoruba trickster tortoise whose cunning and greed always land him trouble, but whose stories impart valuable lessons about honesty, perseverance, and character.
The book is made complete with stunning art by Data Oruwari, whose work brings the myths and characters to life in a manner that evokes traditional depictions of the orisa in West Africa and the diaspora.
A gift to both those familiar with Yoruba culture and religion and those who are encountering them for the first time, Yoruba Mythology is an important and long-awaited contribution to the mythological canon.
About the Author: Oludamini Ogunnaike [oh-loo-DAH-mee-NEE oh-goo-NIGH-kay] is a professor of African religious thought and democracy at the University of Virginia. He specializes in the intellectual and artistic dimensions of West and North African Sufism and Yoruba orisa [OH-REE-SHA] traditions. He received his PhD from the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and his AB in cognitive neuroscience and African studies from Harvard College. He is the author of Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (Penn State University Press, 2020), winner of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) Outstanding First Book Prize; Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: West African Madih Poetry and Its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020); The Book of Clouds (Fons Vitae, 2024); Curls in the Night of Meaning: The Layla Poetry of the Shadhiliyya (forthcoming with SUNY Press in 2026); and, with his brother Ayodeji, Yoruba Mythology (forthcoming with Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers in October 2026).
About the Moderator: Robert Trent Vinson is the Commonwealth Professor of African American and African Studies and the director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. Vinson earned his PhD in African history from Howard University and his publications include the books The Americans Are Coming!: African Americans in 20th Century South Africa and Albert Luthuli: Mandela before Mandela, along with numerous articles. Vinson previously taught at William & Mary, where he was the first chair of The Lemon Project, which documents, preserves, and disseminates scholarship that uncovered William & Mary’s long histories of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. From 2019 to 2023, Vinson served as president of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), and was also an executive board member of the African Studies Association (2021–24). Vinson is also currently coeditor of the Carter G. Woodson book series at the University of Virginia Press.
