Literature
As Nigeria marks its 52th Independence anniversary, SUMAILA UMAISHA highlights the literary landmarks
Before 1960
The effective date of Nigerian?s attainment of independence from the British colonial rule is October 1st, 1960. But the same could not be said of Nigerian literature, considering its long history which predates the colonial era. Oral literature, which is the root of Nigerian literary tradition, began from time immemorial. In terms of written literature, there had been some literary antecedent before Amos Tutola?s The Palm Wine Drinkard and Cyprian Ekwensi?s When Love Whispers hit the scene in the 1940s and 50s. The written tradition was introduced to Northern part in the 15th century by Arab scholars and traders, leading to the adaptation of Hausa into Arabic script ? Ajami. Indigenous writings in Yoruba and Igbo also flourished. And in far away England, Olaudah Equiano, an ex-slave (kidnapped as a boy of 12 from his village of Essaka near Benin and sold to a white slave trader) became one of the first Africans to produce an English-language literary work in 1789. Even the celebrated Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was published two years before independence. However, the vibrancy of the Nigerian literary scene could be said to have begun with the year of independence, 1960. The literary productions of Achebe and his contemporaries at this period marked a milestone in the Nigerian literary history.
1960s
The most outstanding writers of this era were Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okpara, T.M. Aluko, Christopher Okigbo, John Pepper Clark and Cyprian Ekwensi. Generally referred to as the first generation writers, this crop of writers gave African literature focus and direction. They addressed basic African problems like colonialism, neo-colonialism and propagated African values to the outside world. Above all, they sought to correct the misrepresentation of Nigerians and Africans in literary works like Joyce Cary?s Mister Johnson and African Witch, Rider Haggard?s She, King Solomon?s Mines and Allan Quartermain, and Joseph Conrad?s Heart of Darkness and so on. This period witnessed the publication of critical works like Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart by Achebe, A Dance of the Forest by Wole Soyinka, Song of a Goat by J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, and Path of Thunder by Christopher Okigbo.
The emergence of African Writers Series, AWS, by Heinemann from 1962 really helped to boost the Nigerian and indeed African writings of this era, ensuring an international voice for the literary pioneers, including Ngugi wa Thiong?o, Steve Biko, Ama Ata Aidoo, Nadine Gordimer, Buchi Emecheta and Okot p?Bitek. By the time Chinua Achebe left the editorship of the series in 1972, over 40 writers from 19 different African countries had been published.
1970s
The issue that became a major concern to the Nigerian writers in the 60s and 70s, apart from the multiplying societal ills, was the Nigerian Civil War which took place between 1967 and 1970. Testimonies to the madness of the era include Elechi Amadi?s Sunset in Biafra (1973), Soyinka?s The Man Died (1972), Chukuemeka Ike?s Sunset at Dawn (1976), and Flora Nwapa?s Never Again (1976).
The critical tone of the works of the first generation writers were sustained and amplified even by writers whose subject-matters were not the civil war. A typical examples of the protest works are Festus Iyayi?s novel, Violence (1979), which portrays violence not only as a war phenomenon, but a general circumstance of deprivation, Femi Osofisan?s Kolera Kolel (1975), and Labo Yari?s Climate of Corruption (1978).
In terms of literary prizes, this period witnessed one of the early prizes to be won by a Nigerian writer. Isidore Okpewho won the 1972 African Arts Prize with his second novel The Last Duty.
1980s
Notable works of this era were Innocent Victims (1988) by Abubakar Gimba, one of the most prominent writers in the North, and Masters of the Board (1985) by Chris Abani, US-based award-winning novelist. Though women writers such as Flora Nwapa (the first published Nigerian female novelist and the first woman in Africa to have her work, Efuru, 1966, published in London) have been on the literary stage from the 1960s, their mark was more pronounced in the 80s. Zaynab Alkali, the first female writer (writing in English) to emerged from the North, made her debut in 1984 with her novel, The Stillborn, followed by The Virtuous Woman (1985). Helen Obviagele and other women writers published their works in the African Writers? Series and the popular Pacesetter series.
The Pacesetter series really marked a milestone in Nigerian literature as hundreds of youths across Africa were published, with Nigerians forming the largest percentage. The series deal mostly with contemporary issues that were of interest to young adults. Among the young writers to be published were Mohammed Sule, author of The Undesirable Element and The Delinquent, and Dickson Ighrini who authored Death is a Woman (1981) and Bloodbath at Lobster Close (1980). By the early 1990s, there were about 125 titles in the series.
Wole Soyinka?s winning of the coveted Nobel Prize for literature in 1986 further launched Nigerian and indeed African literature into the global limelight. Of course, the honour was not for Soyinka alone but for the entire African writers, as it inspired them to work harder. Soyinka himself made this point while accepting the prize; he said it was an honour for all the labour of his fellow writers across the African continent. Thereafter the story of Nigerian literature became a story of more books, more books and more prizes.
1990s
The tempo of prize winning was sustained in the 1990s by Ben Okri who won the Booker Prize in 1991 with his 500-page novel The Famished Road. This feat kind of set the stage for writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Helon Habila, Sefi Attah and a host of other talented writers at home and abroad to dominate the global literary landscape, winning prizes that were hitherto the preserve of writers from ?advanced? countries.
2000s
Helon Habila was the first to signal the magnitude of literary feat the world should expect from Nigeria in the new Millennium. From the quiet corner of the Arts Desk of Vanguard newspaper in Lagos, where he worked as Arts Editor, he propelled himself into international spotlight by clinching the 2001 edition of Caine Prize for African Writing. He won the prestigious prize with his short story ?Love Poems? ? which he later expanded into a full length novel, Waiting for an Angel.
Not long after that Chimamanda followed suit. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, won the 2005 Commonwealth Writers? Prize for Best First Book and short-listed for the prestigious Orange Fiction Prize in 2004. Then her Half of a Yellow Sun, a novel based on the Biafran war, eventually clinched the Orange prize in 2007.
Subsequently, in 2006, Sefi Attah?s debut novel, Everything Good Will Come, was awarded the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, while Ahmed Yerima won the Nigeria Literature Prize, sponsored by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, with his play, Hard Ground.
Chinua Achebe, the acclaimed father of modern African literature, crowned the literary prize scene in 2007 by winning the Man Booker Prize for his lifetime achievement in fiction writing. The shortlist from which he emerged winner included literary gurus like Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and Ian McEwan. The prize was in honour of his literary example and achievements, according to the judge, Elaine Showalter: ?In Things Fall Apart and his other fictions set in Nigeria, Chinua Achebe inaugurated the modern African novel. He also illuminated the path for writers around the world seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies.?
From the above highlights, one could say, at 52 Nigerian literature has come of age. In the words of the renowned literary critic, Professor Charles E. Nnolim, ?Nigeria today stands tall before the international community.?
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- I Feel At The Top Of The World!
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Literature
52 Glorious Years of Nigerian Literature
As Nigeria marks its 52th Independence anniversary, SUMAILA UMAISHA highlights the literary landmarks
Before 1960
The effective date of Nigerian?s attainment of independence from the British colonial rule is October 1st, 1960. But the same could not be said of Nigerian literature, considering its long history which predates the colonial era. Oral literature, which is the root of Nigerian literary tradition, began from time immemorial. In terms of written literature, there had been some literary antecedent before Amos Tutola?s The Palm Wine Drinkard and Cyprian Ekwensi?s When Love Whispers hit the scene in the 1940s and 50s. The written tradition was introduced to Northern part in the 15th century by Arab scholars and traders, leading to the adaptation of Hausa into Arabic script ? Ajami. Indigenous writings in Yoruba and Igbo also flourished. And in far away England, Olaudah Equiano, an ex-slave (kidnapped as a boy of 12 from his village of Essaka near Benin and sold to a white slave trader) became one of the first Africans to produce an English-language literary work in 1789. Even the celebrated Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was published two years before independence. However, the vibrancy of the Nigerian literary scene could be said to have begun with the year of independence, 1960. The literary productions of Achebe and his contemporaries at this period marked a milestone in the Nigerian literary history.
1960s
The most outstanding writers of this era were Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okpara, T.M. Aluko, Christopher Okigbo, John Pepper Clark and Cyprian Ekwensi. Generally referred to as the first generation writers, this crop of writers gave African literature focus and direction. They addressed basic African problems like colonialism, neo-colonialism and propagated African values to the outside world. Above all, they sought to correct the misrepresentation of Nigerians and Africans in literary works like Joyce Cary?s Mister Johnson and African Witch, Rider Haggard?s She, King Solomon?s Mines and Allan Quartermain, and Joseph Conrad?s Heart of Darkness and so on. This period witnessed the publication of critical works like Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart by Achebe, A Dance of the Forest by Wole Soyinka, Song of a Goat by J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, and Path of Thunder by Christopher Okigbo.
The emergence of African Writers Series, AWS, by Heinemann from 1962 really helped to boost the Nigerian and indeed African writings of this era, ensuring an international voice for the literary pioneers, including Ngugi wa Thiong?o, Steve Biko, Ama Ata Aidoo, Nadine Gordimer, Buchi Emecheta and Okot p?Bitek. By the time Chinua Achebe left the editorship of the series in 1972, over 40 writers from 19 different African countries had been published.
1970s
The issue that became a major concern to the Nigerian writers in the 60s and 70s, apart from the multiplying societal ills, was the Nigerian Civil War which took place between 1967 and 1970. Testimonies to the madness of the era include Elechi Amadi?s Sunset in Biafra (1973), Soyinka?s The Man Died (1972), Chukuemeka Ike?s Sunset at Dawn (1976), and Flora Nwapa?s Never Again (1976).
The critical tone of the works of the first generation writers were sustained and amplified even by writers whose subject-matters were not the civil war. A typical examples of the protest works are Festus Iyayi?s novel, Violence (1979), which portrays violence not only as a war phenomenon, but a general circumstance of deprivation, Femi Osofisan?s Kolera Kolel (1975), and Labo Yari?s Climate of Corruption (1978).
In terms of literary prizes, this period witnessed one of the early prizes to be won by a Nigerian writer. Isidore Okpewho won the 1972 African Arts Prize with his second novel The Last Duty.
1980s
Notable works of this era were Innocent Victims (1988) by Abubakar Gimba, one of the most prominent writers in the North, and Masters of the Board (1985) by Chris Abani, US-based award-winning novelist. Though women writers such as Flora Nwapa (the first published Nigerian female novelist and the first woman in Africa to have her work, Efuru, 1966, published in London) have been on the literary stage from the 1960s, their mark was more pronounced in the 80s. Zaynab Alkali, the first female writer (writing in English) to emerged from the North, made her debut in 1984 with her novel, The Stillborn, followed by The Virtuous Woman (1985). Helen Obviagele and other women writers published their works in the African Writers? Series and the popular Pacesetter series.
The Pacesetter series really marked a milestone in Nigerian literature as hundreds of youths across Africa were published, with Nigerians forming the largest percentage. The series deal mostly with contemporary issues that were of interest to young adults. Among the young writers to be published were Mohammed Sule, author of The Undesirable Element and The Delinquent, and Dickson Ighrini who authored Death is a Woman (1981) and Bloodbath at Lobster Close (1980). By the early 1990s, there were about 125 titles in the series.
Wole Soyinka?s winning of the coveted Nobel Prize for literature in 1986 further launched Nigerian and indeed African literature into the global limelight. Of course, the honour was not for Soyinka alone but for the entire African writers, as it inspired them to work harder. Soyinka himself made this point while accepting the prize; he said it was an honour for all the labour of his fellow writers across the African continent. Thereafter the story of Nigerian literature became a story of more books, more books and more prizes.
1990s
The tempo of prize winning was sustained in the 1990s by Ben Okri who won the Booker Prize in 1991 with his 500-page novel The Famished Road. This feat kind of set the stage for writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Helon Habila, Sefi Attah and a host of other talented writers at home and abroad to dominate the global literary landscape, winning prizes that were hitherto the preserve of writers from ?advanced? countries.
2000s
Helon Habila was the first to signal the magnitude of literary feat the world should expect from Nigeria in the new Millennium. From the quiet corner of the Arts Desk of Vanguard newspaper in Lagos, where he worked as Arts Editor, he propelled himself into international spotlight by clinching the 2001 edition of Caine Prize for African Writing. He won the prestigious prize with his short story ?Love Poems? ? which he later expanded into a full length novel, Waiting for an Angel.
Not long after that Chimamanda followed suit. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, won the 2005 Commonwealth Writers? Prize for Best First Book and short-listed for the prestigious Orange Fiction Prize in 2004. Then her Half of a Yellow Sun, a novel based on the Biafran war, eventually clinched the Orange prize in 2007.
Subsequently, in 2006, Sefi Attah?s debut novel, Everything Good Will Come, was awarded the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, while Ahmed Yerima won the Nigeria Literature Prize, sponsored by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, with his play, Hard Ground.
Chinua Achebe, the acclaimed father of modern African literature, crowned the literary prize scene in 2007 by winning the Man Booker Prize for his lifetime achievement in fiction writing. The shortlist from which he emerged winner included literary gurus like Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and Ian McEwan. The prize was in honour of his literary example and achievements, according to the judge, Elaine Showalter: ?In Things Fall Apart and his other fictions set in Nigeria, Chinua Achebe inaugurated the modern African novel. He also illuminated the path for writers around the world seeking new words and forms for new realities and societies.?
From the above highlights, one could say, at 52 Nigerian literature has come of age. In the words of the renowned literary critic, Professor Charles E. Nnolim, ?Nigeria today stands tall before the international community.?
- I Will Stop Writing If I Don?t Win Nobel Prize ? Ebhodaghe
On the social media the London-based Nigerian writer, Omohan Ebhodaghe, is dubbed ?self-praise singer? because he is never shy of posting about the qualities of his work, what is supposed to be done by a critic. He also believes his yet to be published...
- Celebrating Clark?s 50 Years Of Literary Excellence
Professor John Pepper Clark Bekederemo, popularly known as JP Clark, is not a new name on the Nigerian literary scene. Literature students who passed through Nigerian secondary schools and universities from the 1960s to date would testify to the quality...
- I Feel At The Top Of The World!
ISAAC ATTAH OGEZI, legal practitioner, playwright, short story writer and literary essayist, based in Keffi, Nasarawa State, is a consistent literary prizes winner . In addition to his numerous prizes, his play, Waiting for Savon, has just won this year?s...
- History Of Nigerian Literature
The beginning of Nigerian Literature In the beginning was oral literature, the root of African literature. Nigerian literature, in particular, began with the oral tradition, pioneered by the unsung heroes of her literary past, like royal bards, warriors,...
- Sefi Atta: 'i Don?t Think Every Literary Work Should Be Didactic' (interview)
Sefi Atta, who recently won the literary prize endowed in honour of the first African literary Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, for her novel, Everything Good Will Come, was born in Lagos, educated in Lagos and England and currently teaches at Meridian...