excellence, and was widely acclaimed. Later in 1961, Beier co-founded the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, Ibadan, a place for new writers, dramatists and artists, to meet and perform their work. Among the young writers involved with it in the exciting early years of Nigerian independence were Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. In 1962, with the dramatist Duro Ladipo, he co-founded Mbari Mbayo (the Mbari Club), Osogbo. Beier was also known for his work in translating traditional Nigerian literary works into English. He translated the plays of such Nigerian dramatists as Duro Ladipo and published Modern Poetry (1963), an anthology of African poems. He also wrote his own plays, published under the name "Obotunde Ijimere". Writing as Obotunde Ijimere (and later as M. Lovori), Beier masqueraded as Nigerian and Papua New Guinean. While mimicking the indigenous writers of those places, Beier also criticized other white people and cultures for imitating indigenous ones. He later claimed that his Ijimere writing "just 'happened'", but Beier actively sought to write under the identities of his alter egos. In 1966, he and his second wife, the artist Georgina Betts, left Nigeria during the civil war to work in Papua New Guinea. Beier intermittently returned to Nigeria for brief periods. While in Papua New Guinea, he fostered budding writers at the University of Papua New Guinea, and his wife Georgina Beier continued the work she had been doing in Nigeria, recognising and encouraging New Guineans in their visual art. Beier found international venues for taking the native artwork to the world. In New Guinea, he founded the literary periodical Kovave: A Journal of New Guinea literature. It also carried reproductions of works by Papua New Guinean artists, including Timothy Akis and Mathias Kauage. His efforts have been described as significant in facilitating the emergence of Papua New Guinean literature. While in Papua New Guinea, Beier encouraged Albert Maori Kiki to record his autobiography, which Beier transcribed and edited. The book, Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime, was published in 1968. In 1967 he began the Papua Pocket Poets (PPP) book series. While at UPNG Beier also wrote plays under a Papua New Guinean name. In the early 1980s, Beier returned for a time to Germany, where he founded and directed the Iwalewa Haus, an art centre at the University of Bayreuth. Beier lived in Sydney, Australia, with his wife Georgina Beier. He died at home