JALA Winter-Spring 2008-Vol 2 No 1 - African Literature Association

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____ The Voice of Love. [Unknown publisher; no date of publication] ____ The Love that Fights. [Unknown publisher; no date of publication] ____ Adanwa Nwan. [Unknown publisher; no date of publication] ____Do you know Them? [Unknown publishers; no date of publication] ____ The Road to Success. [Unknown publisher; no date of publication] ____he Adventure of Constable Joe. [Unknown publisher, no date of publication] _____Is this Politics? [Unknown publishers, no date of _____The Juju Priest. Enugu. Fourth Dimension Co Ltd, 2002 Sander, Richard W and Peter K. Ayers (ed.) Ogali A Ogali, Veronica My Daughter and Other Onitsha Market Plays and Stories. Washington DC: Three Continent Press, 1980. Speedy Eric. Mabel the Sweet Honey that Poured Away. Main Market, Onitsha, Nigeria: A. Onwundiwe &Sons.[No date of publication] Thometz, Kurt. Life Turns Man Up and Down: Highlife, Useful Advice and publication] Mad English-An African Market Literature. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001 Ude, A.O. Nigerian Bachelor Guide. Onitsha [No date of publication] Onookome Okome University of Alberta 225
Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi (Sept. 26, 1921 – Nov. 4, 2007) The Writer, the Man and His Era When Cyprian O. D. Ekwensi quietly passed into eternity on Sunday, November 4, 2007, Nigeria, Africa and indeed the literary world lost a most endowed and gifted artist. Cyprian Ekwensi was one of a kind – versatile, dexterous, humorous, kind-hearted but firm and principled, affable and charitable, but strict in his ways and rarely ostentatious. He had no need to be. His death at 86 must have surprised him at the critical point of the rite of passage. Longevity is a known virtue in his lineage. He hoped he would equal or surpass his late mother’s age of 101, or at the very least break even with has late father’s 98 years. Even if he didn’t realize it on this side of the planet, he now knows that he certainly outlived his parents, for a writer like Cyprian Ekwensi does not die. He lives eternally in his works, and they are literally speaking countless. Ekwensi was a writer for all seasons and all ages. He wrote for children, adolescents, adults and the aged. He wrote for men and women. His primary goal was to amuse, to entertain, and to raise moral questions that besiege humanity at critical periods of development. As a writer he saw himself very much as an avid photographer behind a camera, which was his greatest hobby. When he stood behind the camera he reproduced the image as it showed through the lens. His guiding principle as a writer was to hold a mirror up to the people of his society and describe faithfully the reflections that he saw. It often puzzled him why and how people could quarrel with his depictions of reality in a novel like Jagua Nana (1961), his most popular and controversial creative work. The central character is a magnificently fashionable but raw prostitute in her forties in love with a young teacher in his late twenties who hoped she would sponsor him to travel to England to study law. She on her part hoped he would marry and support her in her old age. So what? Ekwensi knew her type existed in the emerging Nigerian urban centers. And when an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan (then University College, Ibadan) tore his copy of the novel to shreds and publicly denounced it as pornographic and a corrupter of youth, Ekwensi countered with: I have never bothered to reply to any of the nonsense that has been written by the illiterate and uninformed like yourself. But I am writing 226
Page 1 and 2: In Memory of Ogali A. Ogali (Octobe
Page 3 and 4: defined by the masculine precepts o
Page 5 and 6: Veronica My Daughter is Ogali first
Page 7 and 8: Eddy the Coal City Boy is interesti
Page 9 and 10: turns the wrong corner for him when
Page 11 and 12: in Okenwa Olisah, Thomas Iguh and S
Page 13: Beier, Ulli. “Public Opinions on
Page 17 and 18: As a writer Cyprian O. D. Ekwensi h
Page 19 and 20: paths as Cyprian was to do years la

JALA Winter-Spring 2008-Vol 2 No 1 - African Literature Association

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