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ICALEL
ICALEL is an acronym for the Calabar International Conference on African Literature and the English Language founded and chaired by African scholar and critic Ernest Emenyonu. At the centre of the conference are African writers and critics from all over the world. The first conference entitled “The Woman as a Writer in Africa” was held at the University of Calabar auditorium in May 1981 and Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo was keynote speaker. The themes of 1982, namely "Literature in African Languages" and "Writing Books for Children", featured Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Bessie Head as keynote speakers. The many notable African writers who have featured at the conference over the years include Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chinweizu, Dennis Brutus, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Elechi Amadi, Ken Saro Wiwa, Chukwuemeka Ike, Nuruddin Farah, Syl Cheney-Coker Syl Cheney-Coker (born 28 June 1945)R. Victoria Arana"Cheney-Coker, Syl" in ''Encyclopedia of World Poetry'', I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Emenyonu
Chief Sir Ernest Emenyonu is a Nigerian academic, who is an African literature critic and professor. He was formerly head of the department of English and Literary Studies, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, in that order, through the 1980s and 1990s. He was also Provost of Alvan Ikoku College of Education now Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Educationˌ Owerri in Imo stateˌ Nigeria (1992–1995). Ernest Nneji Emenyonu is one of the preeminent scholars in the world on African Literature. He has published biographies on notable writers such as Chinua Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi. While at the University of Calabar, Emenyonu founded and chaired the Calabar annual International Conference on African Literature and the English Language (ICALEL). This promoted interaction of African writers and critics with visiting international scholars. Emenyonu is a research professor at University of Michigan. He held the position of Head of Departme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area.Sayre, April Pulley (1999), ''Africa'', Twenty-First Century Books. . With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Conferences
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. New York: J.P. Putnam's Son Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is counted a typical be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Criticism
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory is a matter of some controversy. For example, the ''Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism'' draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract. Literary criticism is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Literature
African literature is literature from Africa, either oral ("orature") or written in African and Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of pre-colonial African literature can be traced back to at least the fourth century AD. The best-known is the ''Kebra Negast'', or "Book of Kings." A common theme during the colonial period is the slave narrative, often written in English or French for western audiences. Among the first pieces of African literature to receive significant worldwide critical acclaim was ''Things Fall Apart'', by Chinua Achebe, published in 1958. African literature in the late colonial period increasingly feature themes of liberation and independence. Post-colonial literature has become increasingly diverse, with some writers returning to their native languages. Common themes include the clash between past and present, tradition and modernity, self and community, as well as politics and development. On the whole, female writers are today far better represented in Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syl Cheney-Coker
Syl Cheney-Coker (born 28 June 1945)R. Victoria Arana"Cheney-Coker, Syl" in ''Encyclopedia of World Poetry'', Infobase Learning, 2015. is a poet, novelist, and journalist from Freetown, Sierra Leone. Educated in the United States, he has a global sense of literary history, and has introduced styles and techniques from French and Latin American literatures to Sierra Leone. He has spent much of his life in exile from his native country, and has written extensively (in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction) about the condition of exile and the view of Africa from an African abroad. Early life and education Cheney-Coker was born a Creole in Freetown, Sierra Leone, with the name Syl Cheney Coker, and changed his name to its current spelling in 1970. He went to the United States in 1966, where he attended the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Oregon, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. After his schooling he returned briefly to Sierra Leone, but accepted a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuruddin Farah
Nuruddin Farah ( so, Nuuradiin Faarax, ar, نورالدين فارح) (born 24 November 1945) is a Somali novelist. His first novel, ''From a Crooked Rib'', was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today". He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa. Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world, his prose having earned him accolades including the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Germany, the Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin, and in 1998, the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year, the French edition of his novel ''Gifts'' won the St Malo Literature Festival's prize. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chukwuemeka Ike
Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike OFR, NNOM (28 April 1931 – 9 January 2020) was a Nigerian monarch, academic and writer known for a mixture of lampoon, humor and satire. He owed a little bit of his style to his Igbo cultural upbringing. He studied history, English and Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan and earned a master's degree at Stanford University.''Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English.'' Among many of the first generation of Nigerian writers, he was popular as the author of ''Expo '77'', a critical look at academic examination abuses in West Africa. Ike was a former registrar of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). Life and career Early life Ike was born into a royal family in Ndikelionwu in Anambra state. He attended Government College Umuahia for secondary education. He started writing at Umuahia for the school magazine, ''The Umuahian'', and he was also influenced by teachers that included Saburi Biobaku, who had honours i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Saro Wiwa
Kenule Beeson "Ken" Saro-Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerian writer, television producer, and environmental activist. Ken Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as a spokesperson, and then as the president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He criticised the Nigerian government for its reluctance to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area. At the peak of his non-violent campaign, he was tried by a special military tribuna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elechi Amadi
Elechi Amadi (12 May 1934 – 29 June 2016) was a Nigerian author and soldier. He was a former member of the Nigerian Armed Forces. He was an author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs, and religious practices prior to contact with the Western world. Amadi is best regarded for his 1966 debut novel, '' The Concubine'', which has been called "an outstanding work of pure fiction". Early life and education Born in 1934, in Mbodo-Aluu in what is now the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria, Elechi Amadi attended Government College, Umuahia (1948–52), Survey School, Oyo (1953–54), and the University of Ibadan (1955–59), where he obtained a degree in Physics and Mathematics. While in university, he adopted the name Elechi Amadi, which he felt reflected his Ikwerre heritage more than his birth name, Emmanuel Elechi Daniel. Career He worked for a time as a land surveyor and later was a teacher at several schools, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Nwapa
Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (13 January 1931 – 16 October 1993), was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African literature, African Literature. She was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition with her first novel ''Efuru,'' published in 1966 by Heinemann Educational Books. While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo people, Igbo woman's viewpoint.Susan Leisure"Nwapa, Flora" Postcolonial Studies @ Emory, Emory University, Fall 1996. She published African literature and promoted women in African society. She was one of the first African women publishers when she founded Tana Press in Nigeria in 1970. Nwapa engaged in governmental work in reconstruction after the Nigerian Civil War, Biafran War; in particular, she worked with orphans and refug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dennis Brutus
Dennis Vincent Brutus (28 November 1924 – 26 December 2009) was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games due to its racial policy of apartheid. Life and work Born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1924 to South African parents, Brutus was of indigenous Khoi, Dutch, French, English, German and Malaysian ancestry. His parents moved back home to Port Elizabeth when he was aged four, and young Brutus was classified under South Africa's apartheid racial code as "coloured"."The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography" ''The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography'' Brutus was a graduate of the |
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