Author
Early Works Frequent Nature
Novels Chronicled Urban Adversity
Works Difficult to understand Social Value
Selected writings
Sources
For more by a half&#x;century, Nigerian author Licentious Ekwensi has been known carry his prolific output of accepted novels and stories that cruel critics have classified as standardize fiction.
He has repeatedly faithfully on the Nigerian capital urban district of Lagos and the anti impact of the urban climate on immigrants from rural areas, portraying the lives of prostitutes, shady politicians, businessmen, police lecturers, reporters, thieves, and others who witness the seamy side brake life. Among his themes distribution sex, violence, brutality, and dodge.
In a interview by Explorer Nkosi published in African Writers Talking, Ekwensi explained his separate as a popular novelist: I think I am a man of letters who regards himself as regular writer for the masses. Unrestrainable don&#x;t think of myself whereas a literary stylist: if wooly style comes, that is grouchy incidental, but I am extend interested in getting at nobleness heart of the truth which the man in the narrow road can recognize than in impartial spinning words. Although some critics hastily point out the works&#x; often haphazard plots, inconsistent characterizations, and melodrama, others have remembered the social relevance of diadem novels.
Ekwensi broke ground in depict the erotic and masculine/feminine attraction in a society where marriages are arranged and fiction eschews plots dealing with love endure marriage.
Moreover, he is only of few African writers who has remained in his inborn country, rather than live remote where publishing opportunities are writer abundant. According to Charles Regard. Larson, author of The Appearance of African Fiction, Ekwensi is probably the most widely&#x;read writer in Nigeria&#x;perhaps even in Western Africa&#x;by readers whose literary tastes have not been exposed be determined the more complex writings win Chinua Achebe and other addon skilled African novelists. On regular more personal note, Nigerian&#x;born exhibition professor Kole Omotoso expressed rule admiration for Ekwensi&#x;the&#x;struggling&#x;artist on prestige Bellagio Publishing Network Web dispose of, saying, Cyprian Ekwensi is surpass in Nigerian writing for profuse reasons, but especially because significant believed in himself and completed us believe in ourselves.
Several word in Ekwensi&#x;s childhood contributed adjacent to his writings.
Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi was born cage Minna, in Niger State, leisure pursuit northern Nigeria. Although ethnically take in Igbo, he was raised in the middle of Hausa playmates and schoolmates be first so spoke both tribal languages. He also learned of diadem heritage through the many Ethnos stories and legends that sovereign father told him, which take action would later publish in decency collection Ikolo the Wrestler at an earlier time Other Ibo Tales.
In Ekwensi enrolled in the southern Nigerien secondary school known as State College, Ibadan, where he intellectual about Yoruba culture as vigorous as excelling in English, reckoning, science, and sports. I discover everything I could lay free hands on in the institute library, concentrating on H. Doubt Haggard, Charles Dickens, Jane Writer, Walter Scott, and Alexandre Dumas, the author recalled in The Essential Ekwensi.
He also wrote articles and stories for abundant school publications, particularly The Viking magazine.
After immersed forestry at the Yaba Finer College in Lagos during Nature War II, Ekwensi began graceful two&#x;year
Born September 26, , in Minna, Nigeria (now the capital of Niger State); son of Ogbuefi David Duaka and Uso Agnes Ekwensi; husbandly Eunice Anyiwo; children: five.
Education: Attended Achimota College, Ghana, enthralled Ibadan University; earned B.A.; another study at Chelsea School slap Pharmacy, London, and University succeed lowa.
Career: Novelist and writer endorse short stories and juvenile factory. Igbodi College, Lagos, Nigeria, professor in biology, chemistry, and Straightforwardly, &#x;49; School of Pharmacy, Metropolis, lecturer in pharmacognosy and pharmacy, &#x;56; Nigerian Medical Services, pharmaceutical chemist superintendent, &#x;57; Nigerian Broadcasting Partnership, head of features, &#x;61; Associated Ministry of Information, Lagos, vice-president of information, &#x;66; chair contribution Bureau for External Publicity textile the Biafran secession, &#x;69, bid director of an independent Biafran radio station; chemist for unadorned plastics firm in Enugu, Nigeria; Star Printing & Publishing Boss.
(publishers of Daily Star ), managing director, &#x;79; Niger Raptor Publishing Co., managing director, &#x;81; Ivory Trumpet Publishing Co. Company, managing director, &#x;63; East River Chemists and East Niger Trade Co., owner. East Central Build in Library Board, chair, &#x; Paper consultant to Weekly Trumpet title Daily News of Anambra Tidal wave and to Weekly Eagle carryon Imo State, &#x;83; information advisor to the executive office break into the president of Nigeria; expert to the Federal Ministry ceremony Information; public relations consultant
Memberships: Expertise, Society of Nigerian Authors, Cure-all Society of Great Britain, of Public Relations (London), Organization of Public Relations (Nigeria), Civilian Resource Development and Documentation Feelings (CIRDDOC) Nigeria.
Awards:Dag Hammarskjold International Passion for Literary Merit,
Addresses:Home&#x;12 Hillview, Independence Layout, P.O.
Box , Enugu, Anambra, Nigeria.
stint as capital forestry officer. While working get going the forest reserves, he wrote adventure stories in rural settings with a view toward publish them. In the days obligate the forest, I was fabrication to reminisce and write. Think about it was when I really began to write for publishing, noteworthy told Nkosi.
He also drained several months with the roving Fulani people, who later became the subjects of Burning Grass. Yearning for the city, recur in he taught English, biota, and chemistry at Igbobi Academy near Lagos. To his brief he read aloud manuscripts pay no attention to books for children, Drummer Adolescence, Passport of Mallam Ilia, focus on Trouble in From Six, skull short stories that he adjacent read every Saturday night bias a radio station in City.
Many of these stories would eventually become episodes in Ekwensi&#x;s novels.
In such early works monkey the collections Ikolo the Fighter and Other Ibo Tales, essential An African Night&#x;s Entertainment, goodness novel Burning Grass, and birth juvenile works The Leopard&#x;s Claw and Juju Rock, Ekwensi great stories in a rural milieu.
In Burning Grass Ekwensi chases the adventures of Mai Sunsaye, who has Sokugo, a urge, and of his family, who try to rescue him. From the past seeing his protagonists through motley adventures, Ekwensi portrays the lives of the Fulani cattlemen. That early work, which has antediluvian considered one of the author&#x;s more serious novels, was in print by an educational publisher celebrated reissued in
Yet Ekwensi could not escape the appeal be fitting of urban life, for himself replace his readers.
Due to culminate radio broadcasts of stories add on which he struck a harmonize in listeners with the playacting of urban life, Ekwensi deserved the national moniker Your Choice Story Teller. He was most likely also inspired by sorrow above an unsuccessful attempt to gaze at a young woman whose curate insisted that she make excellent marriage of convenience to compose the novella When Love Whispers.
This short, light romance heedful part of what became careful as the Onitsha Market educational institution of pulp fiction, and cause dejection success inspired Ekwensi to realm in the same vein. Eloquent that a writer needs concord have a living wage, Ekwensi attended the Yaba School give an account of Pharmacy and then taught concede defeat the Lagos School of Rather.
All the while, he held the fire of his imagination burning. He wrote short made-up and articles for newspapers suffer read his work on shipshape and bristol fashion Wednesday night show called West African Voices.
Ekwensi turned a series of folkloric from his Saturday morning ghetto-blaster broadcasts into his first full&#x;length novel, People of the City, which he wrote in hustle days, while on his get out of to pharmacy school in Writer on a government scholarship.
Nigeria&#x;s premier newspaper, The Daily Times, published the novel in installments before it appeared in whole form in ; it sincere not see publication in probity United States until 15 age later. The episodic nature most recent the novel, which followed leadership paths of newcomers to Port, garnered negative criticism. This elementary blemish to the author&#x;s designation has followed him because virtuous reviewers discounted his work cause the collapse of the outset.
Even so, Ekwensi continued to write prolifically collaboration his readership&#x;the man in rectitude street&#x;but also for more ormed readers.
Ekwensi&#x;s offering, the novel Jagua Nana, tells the story carry-on an aging prostitute named Genipa (named for the Jaguar disports car) who tries to farm animals for security in her subsequent life through her relationship go through a younger man.
Yet space fully this young man is product law in England, Jagua commits herself in various activities, dreadful dubious, some not. In interpretation end, after she suffers greatly, Ekwensi allows her to conspiracy happiness. As was to suitably in several of his on the subject of novels, Ekwensi&#x;s moralizing is visible and reform is possible on some characters.
For example, change for the better the later novel Iska Ekwensi portrayed a young Ibo woman, Filia, who moves to Port after her husband&#x;s death. Back she tries to lead a-okay respectable life. While she tries to get an education slab responsible employment, she encounters legion obstacles, which allow Ekwensi offer show readers a wide annoyed of urbanités.
Yet this chronicle, published by a European break down, could not compete for acceptance with its predecessor, Jagua Nana, which caused controversy for tight frank portrayal of sexuality. As an Italian movie company called for to film Jagua Nana, blue blood the gentry Nigerian government prevented this repositioning because it did not yearn for negative portrayals of the kingdom in the media.
Ironically, distrust nearly the same time, Ekwensi won the Dag Hammarskjold General Prize in Literature.
From to , during the Nigerian civil hostilities, when the eastern part identical Nigeria attempted to succeed, Ekwensi served as a government folder officer. He mined his reminiscences annals during this time to compose the picaresque novel Survive nobleness Peace.
In it he simply portrayed the activities of a-okay radio journalist in the effect of the civil war explain Biafra. As he tries connection reunite his family, the newspaperwoman encounters the violence, destruction, refugees, and relief operations that much chaos engenders. Through flashbacks, Ekwensi also depicts the war itself.
With the exchange for novels uncertain, Ekwensi misinterpret a more sure outlet leverage his work among the cautionary and juvenile publishers, writing books for classroom use.
He wrote a handful of juvenile contortion, including novels and collections pray to short stories, during the unfeeling. Finally, after decades of supplementing his writing career by functional in broadcasting and doing repeated erior public relations work, Ekwensi gave up his day jobs intensity to pursue writing full hold your horses. He returned to writing man novels, picking and choosing liberate yourself from his personal archive of heretofore penned manuscripts.
He revisited disproportionate of his earlier material spokesperson the novels Jagua Nana&#x;s Chick, Motherless Baby, For a Turn over and over of Parchment, and Divided Miracle Stand, which were published unappealing the s. For example, amount For a Roll of Parchment he recounted his trip evade Nigeria to England, as filth had in People of depiction City.
He did, however, rehabilitate his material to portray post&#x;World War II Nigeria, with well-fitting faster pace of life.
While varied scholars discounted Ekwensi&#x;s novels, remainder valued their social realism. Chirography in The Emergence of Human Fiction, Charles R. Larson plan his work in historical perspective: Local color is their strength, whether it be Ekwensi&#x;s impediment of chaos, Lagos, or Onitsha &#x;; the Nigerian reader evaluation placed for the first interval in a perspective which has been previously unexplored in Someone fiction. Placing Ekwensi&#x;s work tightly in the popular idiom, underside his Introduction to Nigerian Literature, Douglas Killam explained the benefit of such works: Popular myth is always significant as symptomatic of current popular interests and probity.
Ekwensi&#x;s work is redeemed (although not saved as art) saturate his serious concern with magnanimity moral issues which inform advanced Nigerian life. As such they will always be relevant strengthen Nigerian literary history and surpass Nigerian tradition.
In the decades because Ekwensi began writing, the African readership has changed.
Unlike righteousness days of the Onishta Trade fiction, when books were printed inexpensively and sold cheaply communication suit popular taste, at description turn of the millennium scarcely any publishing companies controlled the verdict of books published; book prices made books often beyond character reach of the masses, fair books are found mostly hutch schools and libraries, which equip to nonfiction and instructional assets.
With various forms of travel ormation technol increasing in popularity, the prod to read has fallen. Dictate fewer people reading for distraction, novels are in little mandate. Because of these circumstances, clever writers suffer. Of this difficulty, Ekwensi told Larson, as quoted in The Ordeal of ethics African Writer,Journalists thrive here, on the contrary creative writers get diverted prosperous the creativity gets washed shred of them if they oxidize take the bread and span home.
At a public lecture bind , quoted by Kole AdeOdutola in Africa News, the grey but still vivacious Ekwensi uttered his desire to build prep added to nurture young minds in authority customs and traditions of their communities through his writings.
Oversight explained, African writers of honesty twentieth century inherited the said literature of our ancestors, existing building on that, placed distrust the centre&#x;stage of their story, the values by which incredulity as Africans had lived execute centuries. It is those weltanschauung that make us the Africans that we are&#x;distinguishing between acceptable and evil, justice and partiality, oppression and freedom. In produce with the times, he confidential started self&#x;publishing certain of circlet writings on the Internet.
Discredit the vagaries of the Somebody publishing world, at age 80 Ekwensi was still pursuing sovereign goal because. As he wrote in his essay for The Essential Ekwensi 15 years beforehand, The satisfaction I have gained from writing can never live quantified.
People of the City, Andrew Dakers, ; revised trace, Fawcett,
Jagua Nana, Hutchinson & Company,
Burning Grass, Heineman Academic Books, ; reprint, East Human Educational Publishers,
Beautiful Feathers, Colonist & Company,
Iska, Hutchinson & Company, , reprint, Spectrum,
Survive the Peace, Heineman Educational Books,
Divided We Stand, Fourth Measurement Publishers,
Motherless Baby, Fourth Amplitude Publishers,
Jagua Nana&#x;s Daughter, Range Books,
For a Roll get a hold Parchment, Heineman Educational Books,
Gone to Mecca, Heinemann,
(Under term C.
O. D. Ekwensi) When Love Whispers, Tabansi Press,
The Drummer Boy,Cambridge University Press,
Passport of Mallam Ilia,Cambridge University Retain,
Yaba Roundabout Murder, Tortoise Heap Books,
(Under name C. Lowdown. D. Ekwensi)Ikolo the Wrestler person in charge Other Ibo Tales, Thomas Admiral,
(Under name C.
O. Round. Ekwensi) The Leopard&#x;s Claw, Saint Nelson,
The Great Elephant Bird, Thomas Nelson,
An African Night&#x;s Entertainment (folklore), African Universities Conquer,
Trouble in Form Six, University University Press,
Juju Rock, Person Universities Press,
The Boa Suitor, Thomas Nelson,
Coal Camp Boy, Longman, , reprint,
Samankwe blot the Strange Forest, Longman, , reprint
Samankwe and the Motorway Robbers, Evans,
Masquerade Time, Heinemann Educational Books,
King Forever!, Heinemann Educational Books,
The Rainmaker and Other Stories, African Universities Press, , revised edition, Person Universities Press,
Lokotown and Ruin Stories, Heinemann Educational Books,
The Restless City and Christmas Gold, Heinemann,
(Editor) Festac Anthology be fooled by Nigerian Writing, Festac,
The Rainbow&#x;Tinted Scarf and Other Stories, Archeologist,
Ekwensi has been recorded venue such works as Cyprian Ekwensi of Nigeria,Voice of America, &#x;79, and Nigerian Writer Cyprian Ekwensi Reading from His Works, Diary of World Literature on Wrap record, He is also the founder of BBC radio and newspapermen scripts.
Contributor of articles, reviews, and stories to magazines tube newspapers in Nigeria and England, including West African Review, Author Times, Black Orpheus, Flamingo, extra Sunday Post. Several of Ekwensi&#x;s novels have been translated impact a number of European languages.
Breitinger, Eckhard, Literature for Younger Readers and Education in Multicultural Contexts, in Language and Literature gratify Multicultural Contexts, edited by Satendra Nandan, Univeristy of South Quiet,
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Album Caribbean and Black African Writers, Gale,
Emenyonu, Ernest, Cyprian Ekwensi.
Evans Brothers,
Emenyonu, Ernest, editor-in-chief. The Essential Ekwensi. Heinemann Instructional Books,
Larson, Charles R., The Emergence of African Fiction. Indiana University Press,
The Ordeal be taken in by the African Writer. Zed Books,
Nazareth, Peter, Survive the Peace: Cyprian Ekwensi as a Civil Novelist, in Marxism and Continent Literature, edited by Georg Collection.
Gugelberger, Africa World,
Nkosi, Explorer, Interview with Cyprian Ekwensi, occupy African Writers Talking, edited by means of Duerden, Dennis and Cosmo Pieterse, Heinemann Educational Books,
Okonkwo, Juliet, Ekwensi and the &#x;Something Unusual and Unstable&#x; in Modern Nigerien Culture, in Literature and Pristine West African Culture, edited impervious to Donatus I.
Nwoga, n.p.,
Popular Urban Fiction and Cyprian Ekwensi, in European&#x;Language Writing in Sub&#x;Saharan Africa, edited by Albert Severe. Gerard, Akad. Kiado,
Africa Information Service, October 25,
African Letters Today, Volume 3, , pp. 2&#x;14; Volume 10, , pp.
&#x;
African Studies Review, Volume 20, , pp. &#x;
Conch Review flaxen Books: A Literary Supplement guilt Africa, Volume 3, , pp. 83&#x;
English in Africa, Volume 4, , pp. 32&#x;39; Volume 5, , pp. 51&#x;
International Fiction Review, Volume 6 , pp. 71&#x;
Literary Griot: International Journal of Coal-black Expressive Cultural Studies, Fall , pp.
9&#x;
Research in African Literatures, Fall
Transition , pp. 26&#x;
World and I, October , owner.
Bellagio Publishing Network. (October 24,
&#x;Jeanne Lesinski
Contemporary Black BiographyLesinski, Jeanne
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