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Nigerian Writers
Nigerian literature may be roughly defined as the literary writing by citizens of the nation of Nigeria for Nigerian readers, addressing Nigerian issues. This encompasses writers in a number of languages, including not only English but Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, and in the northern part of the county Hausa and Nupe. More broadly, it includes British Nigerians, Nigerian Americans and other members of the African diaspora. ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958) by Chinua Achebe is one of the milestones in African literature. Other post-colonial authors have won numerous accolades, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to Wole Soyinka in 1986, and the Booker Prize, awarded to Ben Okri in 1991 for ''The Famished Road''. Nigerians are also well represented among recipients of the Caine Prize and Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Nigerian literature in English Nigerian literature is predominantly English-language. Literature in the national languages Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of , and with a population of over 225 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second-largest in Africa. Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC, marking the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Famished Road
''The Famished Road'' is a novel by Nigerian author Ben Okri, the first book in a trilogy that continues with ''Songs of Enchantment'' (1993) and ''Infinite Riches'' (1998). Published in London in 1991 by Jonathan Cape, the story of ''The Famished Road'' follows Azaro, an ''abiku'' or spirit child, living in an unnamed African, most likely Nigerian, city. The novel employs a unique narrative style incorporating the spirit world with the "real" world in what some have classified as animist realism. Others have labelled the book African traditional religion realism, while still others choose simply to call the novel fantasy literature. The book exploits the belief in the coexistence of the spiritual and material worlds that is a defining aspect of traditional African life. ''The Famished Road'' was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for 1991, making Okri the youngest ever winner of the prize at the age of 32. Background Okri has spoken of writing the novel during the three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinua Achebe, 1966 (cropped)
Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and ''magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with ''Things Fall Apart'', his '' No Longer at Ease'' (1960) and ''Arrow of God'' (1964) complete the so-called "African Trilogy"; later novels include ''A Man of the People'' (1966) and '' Anthills of the Savannah'' (1987). He is often referred to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization. Born in Ogidi, British Nigeria, Achebe's childhood was influenced by both Igbo traditional culture and postcolonial Christianity. He excelled in school and attended what is now the University of Ibadan, where he became fiercely critical of how European literature depicted Africa. Moving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jagua Nana
''Jagua Nana'' is a 1961 novel by Nigerian novelist Cyprian Ekwensi. The novel was later republished in 1975 as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. The novel focuses on the contradictions within the life of an aging sex worker, the title character Jagua Nana. The novel is set in the city of Lagos. The novel has been compared to works by Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ..., in terms of its moral assessment of the city and city life, and its critique of the social problems faced by people living in those cities. Critics of the work in the 1980s noted that the novel relies heavily on stereotypical depictions of women, hampering its depiction of life in Africa. References Further reading * 1961 Nigerian novels Novels by Cypri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyprian Ekwensi
Chief Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi (26 September 1921 – 4 November 2007) was a Nigerian author of novels, short stories, and children's books. Biography Early life, education and family Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi, an Igbo, was born in Minna, Niger State. He is a native of Nkwelle Ezunaka in Oyi local government area, Anambra State, Nigeria. His father was David Anadumaka, a story-teller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State, Achimota College in Ghana, and the School of Forestry, Ibadan, after which he worked for two years as a forestry officer. He also studied pharmacy at Yaba Technical Institute, Lagos School of Pharmacy, and the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of the University of London. He taught at Igbobi College. Ekwensi married Eunice Anyiwo, and they had five children. He has many grandchildren, including his son Cyprian Ikechi Ekwensi, who is named after his grandfather, and his oldest grandchild Adrianne Tobechi Ek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Orpheus (magazine)
''Black Orpheus'' was a Nigeria-based literary journal founded in 1957 by German expatriate editor and scholar Ulli Beier that has been described as "a powerful catalyst for artistic awakening throughout West Africa".Kate Tuttle"Black Orpheus" in Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr (eds), ''Encyclopedia of Africa, Volume 1'', Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 189. Its name derived from a 1948 essay by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée Noir", published as a preface to ''Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache'', edited by Léopold Sédar Senghor. Beier wrote in an editorial statement in the inaugural volume that "it is still possible for a Nigerian child to leave a secondary school with a thorough knowledge of English literature, but without even having heard of Léopold Sédar Senghor or Aimé Césaire", so ''Black Orpheus'' became a platform for Francophone as well as Anglophone writers.Quoted in Mark Wollaeger with Matt Eatough''The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abiola Irele
Francis Abiola Irele (commonly Abiola Irele, 22 May 1936 – 2 July 2017) was a Nigerian academic best known as the doyen of Africanist literary scholars worldwide. He was Provost at Kwara State University, founded in 2009 in Ilorin, Nigeria. Before moving back to Nigeria, Irele was Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.Reviews of his essays, OUP website Early life Abiola Irele was born in |
Négritude
''Négritude'' (from French "Nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African diaspora during the 1930s, aimed at raising and cultivating "Black consciousness" across Africa and its diaspora. Négritude gathers writers such as sisters Paulette and Jeanne Nardal (known for having laid the theoretical basis of the movement), Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, Abdoulaye Sadji, Léopold Sédar Senghor (the first President of Senegal), and Léon Damas of French Guiana. ''Négritude'' intellectuals disavowed colonialism, racism and Eurocentrism. They promoted African culture within a framework of persistent Franco-African ties. The intellectuals employed Marxist political philosophy, in the Black radical tradition. The writers drew heavily on a surrealist literary style, and some say they were also influenced somewhat by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mbari Club
The Mbari Club was a centre for cultural activity by African writers, artists and musicians that was founded in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1961 by Ulli Beier, with the involvement of a group of young writers including Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe."Ulli Beier" (obituary) '''', 11 May 2011."Mbari Mbayo Club" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. '''', an |
Ulli Beier
Chief Horst Ulrich Beier, commonly known as Ulli Beier (30 July 1922 – 3 April 2011), was a German editor, writer and scholar who had a pioneering role in developing literature, drama and poetry in Nigeria, as well as literature, drama and poetry in Papua New Guinea. Early life and education Ulli Beier was born to a Jewish family in Glowitz, Weimar Germany (modern Główczyce, Poland), in July 1922. His father was a medical doctor and an appreciator of art, who reared his son to embrace the arts. After the Nazi party's rise to power in the 1930s, his father was forced to close his medical practice. The Beiers, who were non-practising Jews, left for Palestine. In Palestine, while his family were briefly detained as enemy aliens by the British authorities, Ulli Beier earned a BA as an external student from the University of London. He later moved to London to earn a graduate degree in Phonetics. He found veterans were being given precedence in academic jobs and searched wide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mbari Club
The Mbari Club was a centre for cultural activity by African writers, artists and musicians that was founded in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1961 by Ulli Beier, with the involvement of a group of young writers including Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe."Ulli Beier" (obituary) '''', 11 May 2011."Mbari Mbayo Club" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. '''', an |
The Palm-Wine Drinkard
''The Palm-Wine Drinkard'' (subtitled "and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town") is a novel published in 1952 by the Nigerian author Amos Tutuola. The first African novel published in English outside of Africa, this quest tale based on Yoruba folktales is written in a modified English or Pidgin English. In it, a man follows his brewer into the land of the dead, encountering many spirits and adventures. The novel has always been controversial, inspiring both admiration and contempt among Western and Nigerian critics, but has emerged as one of the most important texts in the African literary canon, translated into more than a dozen languages. Plot The ''Palm-Wine Drinkard, ''told in the first person, is about an unnamed man who is addicted to palm wine, which is made from the fermented sap of the palm tree and used in ceremonies all over West Africa. The son of a rich man, the narrator can afford his own tapster (a man who taps the palm tree for sap and then prepares the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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