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Things Fall Apart
''Things Fall Apart'' is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958. It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the invasion by Europeans during the late 19th century. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The novel was first published in the UK in 1962 by William Heinemann Ltd, and became the first work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series. The novel follows the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo ("Ibo" in the novel) man and local wrestling champion in the fictional Nigerian clan of Umuofia. The work is split into three parts, with the first describing his family, personal history, and the customs and society of the Igbo, and the second and third sections introducing the influence of European colonialism and Chri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinua Achebe
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. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okonkwo
Okonkwo is a name that may refer to: People *Albert Okonkwo, Nigerian general * Amy Okonkwo (born 1996), Nigerian basketball player * Annie Okonkwo (born 1960), Nigerian politician *Arthur Okonkwo (born 2001) English football player * Charles Okonkwo (born 1965), Nigerian footballer *Chibuzor Okonkwo (born 1988), Nigerian footballer *Chigoziem Okonkwo (born 1999), American football player *Chiké Okonkwo (born 1982), British actor * Christian Okonkwo, Nigerian footballer * Christopher Okonkwo (born 1941), Nigerian athlete * Daniel Okonkwo (born 1975), English basketball player * Digger Okonkwo (born 1975), Nigerian-Maltese footballer *Joe Okonkwo, American writer * Kennedy Okonkwo (born 1977), Nigerian businessman *Kenneth Okonkwo (born 1968), Nigerian actor *Nnamdi Okonkwo, Nigerian banker * Og Okonkwo, Nigerian fashion designer *Onyekachi Okonkwo (born 1982), Nigerian footballer *Patrick Okonkwo (born 1998), Nigerian-American soccer player *Rachael Okonkwo (born 1987), Nigerian act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masterpiece
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, a "masterpiece" was a work of a very high standard produced to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts. Etymology The form ''masterstik'' is recorded in English or Scots in a set of Aberdeen guild regulations dated to 1579, whereas "masterpiece" is first found in 1605, already outside a guild context, in a Ben Jonson play. "Masterprize" was another early variant in English. In English, the term rapidly became used in a variety of contexts for an exceptionally good piece of creative work, and was "in early use, often applied to man as the 'masterpiece' of God or Nature". History Originally, the term ''masterpiece'' referred to a piece of w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah was the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, before moving to New York University (NYU) in 2014. He holds an appointment at the NYU Department of Philosophy and NYU's School of Law. Appiah was elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in January 2022. Personal life and education Appiah was born in London, England, to Peggy Cripps Appiah (née Cripps), an English art historian and writer, and Joe Appiah, a lawyer, diplomat, and politician from Ashanti Region, Ghana. For two years (1970–72) Joe Appiah was the leader of a new opposition party that was made by the country's three opposing parties. Simultaneously, he was the president of the Ghana Bar Association. Betwee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oral Culture
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985), reported statements from present generation which "specifies that the message must be oral statements spoken, sung or called out on musical instruments only"; "There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation". He points out, "Our definition is a working definition for the use of historians. Sociologists, linguists or scholars of the verbal arts propose their own, which in, e.g., sociology, stresses common knowledge. In linguistics, features that distinguish the language from common dialogue (linguists), and in the verbal arts features of form and content that define art (folklorists)."Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: "Methodology and African Prehistory", 1990, ''UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a Gener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proverbs
A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial expression is a type of a conventional saying similar to proverbs and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. Collectively, they form a genre of folklore. Some proverbs exist in more than one language because people borrow them from languages and cultures with which they are in contact. In the West, the Bible (including, but not limited to the Book of Proverbs) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of Erasmus) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs. Not all Biblical proverbs, however, were distributed to the same extent: one scholar has gathered evidence to show that cultures in which the Bible ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Terry Southern, Adrienne Rich, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Genet, and Robert Bly. The ''Review''s "Writers at Work" series includes interviews with Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, and Vladimir Nabokov, among many hundreds of others. Literary critic Joe David Bellamy called the series "one of the single most persistent acts of cultural conservation in the history of the world." The headquarters of ''The Paris Review'' moved from Paris to New York City in 1973. Plimpton edited the ''Review'' from its founding until his death in 2003 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colonial Nigeria
Colonial Nigeria was ruled by the British Empire from the mid-nineteenth century until 1960 when Nigeria achieved independence. British influence in the region began with the prohibition of slave trade to British subjects in 1807. Britain annexed Lagos in 1861 and established the Oil River Protectorate in 1884. British influence in the Niger area increased gradually over the 19th century, but Britain did not effectively occupy the area until 1885. Other European powers acknowledged Britain's dominance over the area in the 1885 Berlin Conference. From 1886 to 1899, much of the country was ruled by the Royal Niger Company, authorised by charter, and governed by George Taubman Goldie. In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown. At the urging of Governor Frederick Lugard, the two territories were amalgamated as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, while maintaining considerable regional autonomy am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igbo Language
Igbo ( , ; Igbo: ''Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò'' ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, a meta-ethnicity from Southeastern Nigeria. The number of Igboid languages depends on how one classifies a language versus a dialect, so there could be around 15 different Igboid languages. The core Igbo cluster or Igbo proper is generally thought to be one language but there is limited mutual intelligibility between the different groupings (north, west, south and east). A standard literary language termed 'Igbo izugbe' (meaning "general igbo") was generically developed and later adopted around 1972, with its core foundation based on the Owerri (Isuama), Anambra (Awka) and Umuahia (Ohuhu) dialects, omitting the nasalization and aspiration of those varieties. However, nobody speaks "general Igbo" natively and it isn't accepted by all Igbo groups. The largest variety of the core Igbo cluster is Ngwa. History The first book to publish Igbo terms was ''History of the M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ogidi, Anambra State
Ogidi is an Igbo town, the headquarters of Idemili North Local Government area, Anambra State, Nigeria. It has an estimated population of 70,000 and has as its neighbours Abatete, Ṅkpọr, Ụmụnnachị, Ụmụoji, Ogbụnike and Ụmụdiọka. Ogidi is best known for its mid-July annual Nwafor Festival, an 11-day festival in July that takes place after cultivation of yams. The other very significant component of the festival is the offer of prayers "for a good season." It usually starts on the first Friday of the month. The town is the birthplace of internationally known author Chinua Achebe, the foremost in Nigeria. An Ogidi indigene, Harford C. Anierobi (from Umuezeobodo, Ajilija-Uru Ogidi) was the prominent actor "Dominic" in the 1949 documentary titled '' Daybreak in Udi'', which won an Oscar for Best Documentary and a BAFTA award for Best Documentary. Also from Ogidi is Catherine Uju Ifejika (née Ikpeze) (born 28 October 1959), a Nigerian lawyer, and Chai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niger River
The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive delta, known as the Niger Delta (or the Oil Rivers), into the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded by the Nile and the Congo River. Its main tributary is the Benue River. Etymology The Niger has different names in the different languages of the region: * Fula: ''Maayo Jaaliba'' * Manding: ''Jeliba'' or ''Joliba'' "great river" * Tuareg: ''Egerew n-Igerewen'' "river of rivers" * Songhay: ''Isa'' "the river" * Zarma: ''Isa Beeri'' "great river" * Hausa: ''Kwara'' * Nupe: ''Èdù'' * Yoruba: ''Ọya'' "named after the Yoruba goddess Ọya, who is believed to embody the river" * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onitsha
Onitsha ( or just ''Ọ̀nị̀chà'') is a city located on the eastern bank of the Niger River, in Anambra State, Nigeria. A metropolitan area, metropolitan city, Onitsha is known for its river port and as an economic hub for commerce, industry, and education. It hosts the Main Market, Onitsha, Onitsha Main Market, the largest market in Africa in terms of geographical size and volume of goods. As of 2016, Onitsha had an estimated city proper population of 1,080,000 people. As of early 2022, Onitsha has a rising estimated population at 1,553,000. The indigenous people of Onitsha are Igbos and speak the Igbo language. The Onitsha people are referred to as Ndi Onicha. Founding and settlement Onitsha Mmili was originally known as Onitsha Ado na Idu. This Igbo town has lived there for years and eventually emigrated across the Niger River to establish the Onitsha community. After their arrival on the east bank (Onicha-mmili, "Onitsha-on-water", see above), the community gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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