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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] |
Malangatana Ngwenya
Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (6 June 1936 – 5 January 2011) was a Mozambican painter and poet. He frequently exhibited work under his first name alone, as Malangatana. He died on 5 January 2011 in Matosinhos, Portugal. Life Born in Matalana, a village in the south of Portuguese Mozambique, Ngwenya spent his early life attending mission schools and helping his mother on the farm. At the age of 12 he went to the city of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) to find work, becoming ball boy for a tennis club in 1953. This allowed him to resume his education, and he took night classes, through which he developed an interest in art. He was encouraged by Augusto Cabral, a member of the tennis club, who gave him materials and helped him to sell his art, and also by Pancho Guedes, another member of the tennis club. In 1958 Ngwenya attended some functions of Nucleo de Arte, a local artists' organization, and received support from the painter Ze Julio. The next year Ngwenya exhibited public ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilson Harris
Sir Theodore Wilson Harris (24 March 1921 – 8 March 2018) was a Guyanese writer. He initially wrote poetry, but subsequently became a novelist and essayist. His writing style is often said to be abstract and densely metaphorical, and his subject matter wide-ranging. Harris is considered one of the most original and innovative voices in postwar literature in English. Biography Wilson Harris was born in New Amsterdam in British Guiana, where his father worked at an insurance company. His parents were Theodore Wilson Harris and Millicent Josephine Glasford Harris. After studying at Queen's College in the capital of Guyana, Georgetown, he became a government surveyor, before taking up a career as lecturer and writer. The knowledge of the savannas and rain forests he gained during his twenty years as a land surveyor formed the setting for many of his books, with the Guyanese landscape dominating his fiction. The experience of the Guyanese interior also shaped his approach to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birago Diop
Birago Diop (11 December 1906 – 25 November 1989) was a Senegalese poet and storyteller whose work restored general interest in African folktales and promoted him to one of the most outstanding African francophone writers."Biography of Birago Diop" , African Success. A renowned , diplomat and leading voice of the literary movement, Diop exemplified the "African renaissance man". Early life Son of Ismael and Sokhna Diop, Birago Diop was born on 11 December 1906 in |
Bloke Modisane
William Modisane (28 August 1923 – 1 March 1986), better known as Bloke Modisane, was a South African writer, actor and journalist. Biography William "Bloke" Modisane, the eldest son of Joseph and Ma-Willie Modisane,Nelly E Sonderling (ed.), ''New Dictionary of South African Biography'', Vol. 2, HSRC Press, 1999, pp. 112–14. grew up in Sophiatown, a multiracial suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa. His father was murdered and his sister died of malnutrition. To make ends meet, his mother ran a shebeen. As Modisane would write in his autobiography: "My mother wanted a better life for her children, a kind of insurance against poverty by trying to give me a prestige profession, and if necessary would go to jail whilst doing it." He joined '' Drum'' magazine as a journalist and became one of "the ''Drum'' Boys" during ''Drum''s halcyon days in the 1950s, along with Henry Nxumalo, Can Themba, Es'kia Mphahlele and Lewis Nkosi. Modisane was also the jazz critic at ''Drums sis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex La Guma
Alex La Guma (20 February 1924 – 11 October 1985) was a South African novelist, leader of the South African Coloured People's Organisation (SACPO) and a defendant in the Treason Trial, whose works helped characterise the movement against the apartheid era in South Africa. La Guma's vivid style, distinctive dialogue, and realistic, sympathetic portrayal of oppressed groups have made him one of the most notable South African writers of the 20th century. La Guma was awarded the 1969 Lotus Prize for Literature. Biography La Guma was born in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa. He was the son of James La Guma, a leading figure in both the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union and the South African Communist Party. La Guma attended Trafalgar High School in District Six in Cape Town.Obituary ''Sechaba'', January 1986. Retri ... [...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 Tobech ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ama Ata Aidoo
Ama Ata Aidoo, ''née'' Christina Ama Aidoo (born 23 March 1942) is a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright and academic. She was the Minister of Education under the Jerry Rawlings administration. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation to promote and support the work of African women writers. Early life Aidoo was born on 23 March 1942 in Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana. Some sources including Megan Behrent, Brown University, and ''Africa Who's Who'' have stated that she was born on 31 March 1940. She had a twin brother, Kwame Ata. She was raised in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. She grew up at a time of resurgent British neocolonialism that was taking place in her homeland. Her grandfather was murdered by neocolonialists, which brought her father's attention to the importance of educating the children and families of the village on the history and events of the era. This led him to open up the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léon Damas
Léon-Gontran Damas (March 28, 1912 – January 22, 1978) was a French poet and politician. He was one of the founders of the Négritude movement. He also used the pseudonym Lionel Georges André Cabassou. Biography Léon Damas was born in Cayenne, French Guiana, to Ernest Damas, a mulatto of European and African descent, and Bathilde Damas, a Metisse of Native American and African ancestry. In 1924, Damas was sent to Martinique to attend the Lycée Victor Schoelcher (a secondary school), where he would meet his lifelong friend and collaborator Aimé Césaire. In 1929, Damas moved to Paris to continue his studies. While he studied law under guidance from his parents, his diverse array of courses in other topics like anthropology, history, and literature sparked his interest in radical politics. There, he reunited with Césaire and was introduced to Leopold Senghor. In 1935, the three young men published the first issue of the literary review '' L'Étudiant Noir'' (The Black Stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Salkey
Andrew Salkey (30 January 1928 – 28 April 1995) was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaican and Panamanian origin. He was born in Panama but raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pursue a job in the literary world, combining a job in a South London Comprehensive school teaching English with a job working on the door of a West End night club. The 1960s and 1970s saw Salkey working as a broadcaster for the BBC World Service, Caribbean section. A prolific writer and editor, he was the author of more than 30 books in the course of his career, including novels for adults and for children, poetry collections, anthologies, travelogues and essays. In the 1960s he was a co-founder with John La Rose and Kamau Brathwaite of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). Salkey died in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he had been teaching since the 1970s, holding a lifetime position as Writer-In-Residence at Hampshire College. Biography He was born ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kofi Awoonor
Kofi Awoonor (born George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams; 13 March 1935 – 21 September 2013) was a Ghanaian poet and author whose work combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization. He started writing under the name George Awoonor-Williams, and was also published as Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor. He taught African literature at the University of Ghana. Professor Awoonor was among those who were killed in the September 2013 attack at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, where he was a participant at the Storymoja Hay Festival. Biography George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams was born in Wheta,"Kofi Awoonor: Remembering a Ghanaian poet" BBC News – Africa, 23 September 2013. in the |
