Fágúnwà's parents were originally adherents of the traditional Yorùbá religion until they converted to Christianity in the late 1910s to early 1920s.

His son, Fagunwa's paternal grandfather was Egunsola Asungaga Bèyíokú, an Ifa priest from the town of Origbo near Ipetumodu.

Asungaga moved from Origbo to Ile-Ife after his children continued dying (this Yorùbá process is called abiku).

After the war between the Ondo and Ife ended, many warriors were allowed to enter a new settlement they called "Oko-Igbo" meaning Farm in the Forest, and later became Òkè-Igbó.

Between 1945 and 1946, he taught at Igbobi College, which was temporarily located at Ibadan due to the Second World War, but which relocated back to Lagos in 1946.

Wole Soyinka translated the book into English in 1968 as The Forest of A Thousand Demons, first published by Thomas Nelson, then Random House in 1982 and again by City Lights in September 2013 (ISBN 9780872866300).

Thematically, his novels also explore the divide between the Christian beliefs of Africa's colonizers and the continent's traditional religions.

Fagunwa remains the most widely read Yorùbá-language author, and a major influence on such contemporary writers as Amos Tutuola.

On 7 December 1963, Fágúnwà was in Bida on his way home to Ibadan after a business trip to Northern Nigeria on behalf of Heinemann Books, where he was employed at the time.

While he was waiting for the pontoon service to open, he went for a walk along the riverside and slipped when a bit of earth broke under his foot.