Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:50:04.544Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Popular Literature for an African Elite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Bernth Lindfors
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The emergence of a literature in English in Nigeria is usually described as a rapid post-war phenomenon, an unexpected flowering of creative energy which took scarcely more than two decades to produce rich, ripe fruit. According to most published reports, this literature was born suddenly in 1952 out of the pregnant thumb of Amos Tutuola; was nursed through a wobbly infancy by Cyprian Ekwensi, T. M. Aluko, and Onuora Nzekwu; was guided through a magnificent adolescence by Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, J. P. Clark, Christopher Okigbo, and their numerous university-trained followers; was tested by a civil war which left several casualties but no diminution of the will to write; and was later restored to normal prolificacy by the assiduous application of old and new talents.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 471 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Page 472 note 1 It is perhaps worth noting that most of these writers took up some form of editorial work later in their career. Michael Echeruo was responsible for the first and only number of The African Writer in 1962, and a special issue of The Coach in 1971. Black Orpheus had as co-editor Wole Soyinka from 1960 to 1963, and J. P. Clark from 1968 to 1972. Chinua Achebe edited a campus radical magazine called Nsukkascope at the University of Nigeria during 1971–2, and is still responsible for Okike, a literary magazine he founded in 1971; he has also served for a decade as an advisory editor for Heinemann's African Writers Series.

Page 473 note 1 For an early article on these publications, see Anon, . [Ramsaran, J. A.], ‘Nigerian School Journals: key to nationhood’, in The Times Educational Supplement (London), 25 04 1958, p. 639.Google Scholar I was able to consult many of these journals at the library of the University of Ibadan while doing research in Nigeria during 1972–3 on a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Page 473 note 2 This estimate is based on information in Nigerian Periodicals and Newspapers, 1950–1970 (Ibadan, 1971), p. 49.Google Scholar Information on other journals cited in this article can also be found in this source.

Page 474 note 1 The Pathfinder, IV, 1970–1971, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 474 note 2 The Ikosi Torch, III, 1971, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 474 note 3 The Emerald, IV, 1964, p. 2.Google Scholar

Page 474 note 4 Dawodu, 1967, p. 7.Google Scholar

Page 474 note 5 Jegede, John K., ‘School Magazines’, The Oyemekun, I, 2, 1957, p. 47.Google Scholar

Page 474 note 6 The Eagle, 1957–1958, p. iv.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 1 The Fiditian, II, 2, 1959, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 2 The Johnian, 1964, p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 3 The Jogs, 1965, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 4 The Link, 1964, p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 5 The Valiant, 1962, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 476 note 1 Olorunyomi, T. I., The Andrian, 01 1964, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

Page 476 note 2 Akinade, E. Yinka, Akinjole, II, 1965, pp. 33–5.Google Scholar

Page 476 note 3 Olaifa, J. I., College Observer, 1967, p. 34.Google Scholar

Page 476 note 4 Nwangu, Festus O., The Bethelian, II, 1960, p. 48.Google Scholar

Page 477 note 1 Adeganjo, Samuel Afolabi, ‘The College Beatitudes’, in Echoes from the Hill, IV, 1967, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

Page 477 note 2 Animashawun, Olanrewaju, ‘The Quality of Rice (with Apologies to Shakespeare)’, in Eleiyele, I, 5, 1962, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

Page 477 note 3 The Mountaineer, I, 3, 1952, p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 478 note 1 The Moat, 1964, p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 478 note 2 The Phoenix, 06 1951, p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 478 note 3 Ekorian, 1965, p. 9.Google Scholar

Page 478 note 4 Iheme, 1955, p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 478 note 5 Eko, I, 1, 1959–1960, p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 479 note 1 John K. Jegede, loc. cit. p. 47.

Page 479 note 2 Munonye, J. O., ‘To the Editor’, in The Bug, II, 4, 13 12 1950, p. 2.Google Scholar

Page 480 note 1 Vin ‘Emeka Ike, ‘Nationalism versus Religion’, ibid. IV, 4, 24 January 1953, p. 3.

Page 480 note 2 ‘Wole Soyinka, ‘Reserved Books’, ibid. V, 6 February 1954, p. 7.

Page 480 note 3 Albert Chinua Achebe, ‘Philosophy’, ibid. II, 7, 21 February 1951, p. 5.

Page 480 note 4 A. C. Achebe, ‘Mr Okafor versus Arts Students’, ibid, IV, 2, 29 November 1952, p. 3.

Page 480 note 5 A. C. Achebe, ‘Hiawatha’, ibid. IV, 2, 29 November 1952, p. 3.

Page 480 note 6 Wole Soyinka, ibid. v, 1, 11, December 1953 p. 11.

Page 480 note 7 Sesay, ibid. V, 2, 16 January 1954, p. 8.

Page 480 note 8 Soyinka, Wole, ‘On Sesay's Essay’, in The Eagle, III, 2, 30 01 1954, p. 7.Google Scholar

Page 481 note 1 Ibid. III, 3, 13 April 1954, p. 6.

Page 481 note 2 Ibid, p. 7.

Page 481 note 3 Ibid. III, 1, 1953, p. 6.

Page 482 note 1 ‘Our Letter from Britain’, ibid. IV, 2, 11 January 1955, p. 4.

Page 483 note 1 F.A.C., ‘The Real Crisis at Ibadan’, in West Africa (London), 28 10 1950,Google Scholar quoted in The University Herald, IV, 1, 04 1951, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 483 note 2 ‘Editorial’, ibid. IV, 2, June 1951, p. 5.

Page 484 note 1 A. Chinua Achebe, ‘There was a Young Man in our Hall’, ibid. IV, 3, 1951–1952, p. 19.

Page 484 note 2 Ibid. V, 1, 1952, pp. 12–14. This story was reprinted in Achebe's, The Sacrificial Egg and Other Short Stories (Onitsha, 1962)Google Scholar under the title ‘Beginning of the End’, and in his Girls at War and Other Short Stories (London, 1972)Google Scholar as ‘Marriage is a Private Affair’.

Page 485 note 1 Wilispeare, , “‘Julius Caesar” in Cinemascope’, in The Beacon, I, 2, 1957, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar