|
Nigerian Writers
Nigerian literature is a literary writing in Nigeria often by her citizens. It encompasses writers in a number of languages spoken in Nigeria including Igbo language, Igbo, Urhobo language, Urhobo, Yoruba language, Yoruba, Hausa language, Hausa and Nupe language, Nupe. ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958) by Chinua Achebe is one of the milestones in African literature. Other Postcolonial literature, 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 plays only a minor role. Most of the important English-language authors in West Africa come from Nigeria. Under British rule ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola (; 20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer who wrote books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales. Early history Amos Olatubosun Tutuola Odegbami was born on 20 June 1920, in Wasinmi, a village just a few miles outside of Abeokuta, Nigeria, where his parents, Charles Tutuola Odegbami and Esther Aina Odegbami, who were Yoruba Christian cocoa farmers, lived. Wasinmi was a small farming village founded between the years 1845 and 1880 by constituents of the Egba subethnic group from Abeokuta. Tutuola's father and grandfather belonged to this subethnic group. Amos was the youngest son of his father; his mother was his father's third wife. His grandfather the Odafin of Egbaland, Chief Odegbami (c. 1842–1936), patriarch of the Odegbami clan, was a chieftain of the Egba people and a traditional worshipper of the Yoruba religion. His title, "Odafin" (literally "the establisher of laws" or "lawgiver" in Yoruba), signified that he had an administrative posi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthills Of The Savannah
''Anthills of the Savannah'' is a 1987 novel by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. It was his fifth novel, first published in the United Kingdom 21 years after Achebe's previous one ('' A Man of the People'' in 1966), and was credited with having "revived his reputation in Britain". A finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize for Fiction, ''Anthills of the Savannah'' has been described as the "most important novel to come out of Africa in the 980s. Critics praised the novel upon its release. Plot The plot centres around the political intrigue, in an imaginary West African country of Kangan, where a Sandhurst-trained officer, identified only as Sam and known as "His Excellency",, has taken power following a military coup. Achebe describes the political situation through the experiences of three friends: Chris Oriko, the government's Commissioner for Information; Beatrice Okoh, an official in the Ministry of Finance, and, girlfriend of Chris; and Ikem Osodi, a newspaper editor critical of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
No Longer At Ease
''No Longer at Ease'' is a 1960 novel by Chinua Achebe. It is the story of an Igbo man, Obi Okonkwo, who leaves his village for an education in Britain and then a job in the Colonial Nigeria civil service, but is conflicted between his African culture and Western lifestyle and ends up taking a bribe. The novel is the second book of Achebe and second work in the "African trilogy"; following ''Things Fall Apart'' and preceding '' Arrow of God''. Title The book's title was taken from the closing lines of T. S. Eliot's poem, " Journey of the Magi": We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,With an alien people clutching their gods.I should be glad of another death. Plot summary The novel begins with the trial of Obi Okonkwo on the charge of accepting a bribe. It then jumps back in time to a point before his departure for England and works its way forward to describe how Obi ended up on trial. The members of the Umuofia Progressiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedenspreis Des Deutschen Buchhandels
is an international peace prize awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (), which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair. The award ceremony is held in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. The prize has been awarded since 1950. The recipient is remunerated with . According to its statutes, the association "is committed to peace, humanity and understanding among all peoples and nations of the world. The Peace Prize promotes international tolerance by acknowledging individuals who have contributed to these ideals through their exceptional activities, especially in the fields of literature, science and art. Prize winners are chosen without any reference to their national, racial or religious background." Traditionally, the President of Germany and leading political, cultural and diplomatic personalities attend the ceremony, and German public television covers the event. Recipients (laudators) Source: 2020 – *2024 – Anne Applebaum ( Irina Scherbakowa) *202 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinua Achebe, 1966 (cropped)
Chinua Achebe (; born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel ''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 "African Trilogy". Later novels include '' A Man of the People'' (1966) and ''Anthills of the Savannah'' (1987). Achebe is often referred to as the "father of modern African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization. Born in Ogidi, Colonial Nigeria, Achebe's childhood was influenced by both Igbo traditional culture and colonial Christianity. He excelled in school and attended what is now the University of Ibadan, where he became fiercely critical of how Western literature depicted Af ... [...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 novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ..., 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. another International edition was published June 26, 2018. Plot J ... [...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, the capital city of Niger State, north-central Nigeria. He is a native of Nkwelle Ezunaka in Oyi local government area, Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria. His father was David Anadumaka, a storyteller and elephant hunter. Ekwensi attended Government College in Ibadan, Oyo State in southwest Nigeria, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Orpheus (magazine)
''Black Orpheus: A Journal of African and Afro-American Literature'' 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 Mat ... [...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 Ig ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians in 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 somew ... [...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''. '' Mbari'', an [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
