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 Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

.Reviews of his essays, OUP website

Early life

Abiola Irele was born in

Igbo-Ora Igbo-Ora is a city and the headquarters of Ibarapa Central, Oyo State, south-western Nigeria, situated north of Lagos. In 2006 the population of the town was approximately 72,207 people. In 2017 the population is estimated to be around 278,514 pe ...

, Nigeria, and moved to Enugu very early in his life. His father is from

Uokha Uokha lies on the latitude 7 07’N and longitude 6 04’E in a deciduous derived rainforest zone of Edo State. The climate is sub humid tropical with an average annual rainfall of about 1967mm. Uokha is a town in Owan East, a local government a ...

while his mother is from Ora both in Owan area of Edo State, the first language he learned was

Igbo Igbo may refer to: * Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria * Igbo language, their language * anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria See also * Ibo (disambiguation) * Igbo mythology * Igbo music * Igbo art * * Igbo-Ukwu, a ...

, which he learned from the servants who worked for his father and took care of him growing up. After moving to

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...

in 1940, he began to speak

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

. In 1943, after a fight between his parents, Irele returned with his mother to Ora, where he picked up and developed a fluency in the Ora language over the course of a year. However, after returning to Lagos in 1944 to live with his father, he began to predominantly speak Yoruba and maintained it as his ethnic identification. Irele's first encounter with literature was through folk tales and the oral poets who recounted "raras" in the streets. During the years of his formal education, he began to read more English literature.

Education and career

Irele graduated from

Ibadan University The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university in Ibadan, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, one of many colleges within the University of London. It became an independent university in 1962 ...

in 1960. Immediately after graduation, he went to Paris to learn French and completed a Ph.D in French at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, in 1966. On his return to Nigeria, he was employed on the Languages Faculty at the

University of Lagos The University of Lagos, popularly known as UNILAG, is a public research university located in Lagos, Nigeria and was founded in 1962. UNILAG is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria and is ranked among the top universities in th ...

, and then at the

University of Ghana The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the Br ...

Legon Legon , a suburb of the Ghanaian city Accra, is situated about north-east of the city center in the Accra Metropolis District, a district in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Legon is home to the main campus of the University of Ghana. Ghanaia ...

.Obi Nwakanma
"Tribute: Francis Abiola Irele (1936 – 2017)"
''Vanguard'', 16 July 2017. He was editor of ''

Black Orpheus ''Black Orpheus'' (Portuguese: ''Orfeu Negro'' ) is a 1959 romantic tragedy film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play '' Orfeu da Conceição'' by Vinicius de Morae ...

'' magazine, from 1968 until 1975. He also held teaching positions at the

University of Ife Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is a federal government-owned university that is located in the ancient city of Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1961 and classes commenced in October 1962 as the University of Ife ...

(now Obafemi Awolowo University), and in 1975 at the

University of Ibadan The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university in Ibadan, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, one of many colleges within the University of London. It became an independent university in 196 ...

, where he was Chair of Languages. In 1989, he moved to

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

in the U.S. as Professor of African, French and Comparative Literature. 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

Négritude

Irele helped to expound upon the understanding of

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 ...

first theorized by

Aimé Césaire Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He founded the Par ...

in the magazine '' L'Étudiant noir'' and then in his groundbreaking book ''

Cahier d'un retour au pays natal ''Cahier d'un retour au pays natal'' (first published in 1939, with two revised editions in 1947 and a final edition in 1956), variously translated as ''Notebook of a Return to My Native Land'', ''Return to My Native Land'', or ''Journal of a Homec ...

'' (1939), in various articles, like "A Defence of Negritude" in ''Transition'' (1964) or in the article "What is Negritude?" (1977). In his article, Irele defines Négritude as "the literary and ideological movement of French-speaking black intellectuals, which took form as a distinctive and significant aspect of the comprehensive reaction of the black man to the colonial situation...". In his collection of essays ''Négritude et condition africaine,'' Irele explores the question of African thought. He begins by rejecting the notion of ideological difference between anglophone and francophone Africa. He aims to root African progress in the present and not in a romanticized past.

Death

Irele died at the age of 81 on 2 July 2017 in a US hospital. Tributes to him included a poem by

Wole Soyinka Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...

Selected publications

* ''The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora'', Oxford University Press (paperback 2001), * ''The African Experience in Literature and Ideology'', Indiana University Press (reprint 1990), * Joint editor with

Simon Gikandi Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genu ...

of ''The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature'', Cambridge University Press (2004), * "Négritude: Literature and ideology" in ''The African Philosophy Reader'',

References

External links

Photographs of Abiola Irele from the EBR African American Cultural Life digital collection, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
* Obi Nwakanma
"Tribute: Francis Abiola Irele (1936 – 2017)"
''Vanguard'', 16 July 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Irele, F. Abiola 1936 births 2017 deaths Yoruba academics University of Ibadan alumni Nigerian literary critics University of Paris alumni Ohio State University faculty Harvard University staff University of Ibadan faculty American people of Yoruba descent Nigerian emigrants to the United States Kwara State University faculty University of Ghana faculty University of Lagos faculty Obafemi Awolowo University faculty