African Series
Throughout his long career, Achebe was a voice for the peoples of Africa and also a formative influence on a new generation of African writers. This volume of tributes and reflections is a fitting testament to his legacy.
This play satirises the decay in the university system in Nigeria as symptomatic of larger social ills: prostitution, religious zeal and cultism, corruption and social injustice.
In the drama, a young woman, Beatrice, is raped by a group of cultists. The perpetrators are brought to court. But as the judge turns out to be an aunt of one of the cultists, the court is corrupted as she bribes the police to release her nephew.
About the Author:
Olu Obafemi is a playwright, poet and scholar. He is Professor of English at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, and President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). He is a notable critic of contemporary theatre in Nigeria.
Nearby, Leia, Januário and their young daughter are caught up in the pleasure and security of finally finding a flat of their own, while Mena, who was once the beauty of her village, overhears her husband plotting murder.
Before dawn, these innocent people seeking to lead peaceful lives are thrown together in a vicious conspiracy to infiltrate and destabilise Mozambique.
In this collection of short stories, Aidoo elevates the mundane in women's lives to an intellectual level in an attempt at challenging patriarchal structures and dominance in African society. Written from a child's perspective, Aidoo subverts the traditional beliefs and assumptions about the child's voice. Her inimitable sense of style and eloquence, explores love, marriage and relationships with all the issues they throw up for the contemporary African woman. In doing so, she manages to capture the very essence of womanhood.
"The New Tribe" tells the story of Chester's long search for his true identity, and the challenges he faces as a black child in a white family.
This is an African retelling of Euripides: an unnervingly topical story of a people and a beloved city destroyed by the brutality of war. The play was first performed in Lagos in 2003 under the distinguished director Chuck Mike, and subsequently toured the UK.
The author introduces his work:
‘In 1821, the combined forces of the armies of two Yoruba kingdoms ransacked the city of Owu. Owu was a model city-state, one of the most prosperous and best organised of those times. The Allied Forces attacked it with the pretext of liberating the flourishing market…they slaughtered all the males and carried the females into slavery. Owu was never rebuilt…So it was quite logical that as I pondered over this adaptation of Euripides’ play in the season of the Iraqi war that the memories awakened in me should be those of the tragic Owu war…’
About the Author
Femi Osofisan
Femi Osofisan is a prolific Nigerian critic, poet, novelist, and playwright whose work attacks political corruption and injustice, was born in Erunwon village in the old Western Region of Nigeria and educated at the universities of Ibadan, Dakar, and Paris; he is a professor of drama at the University of Ibadan. Among the literary awards and commendations he has won are prizes from the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for both drama (1980) and poetry (1989) and in 2004 he was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), the highest academic prize in that country.
About the Author
Niyi Osundare
Poet, dramatist, critic, essayist, and media columnist, Niyi Osundare has authored over ten volumes of poetry, two books of selected poems, four plays, a book of essays, and numerous articles on literature, language, culture, and society. He regards his calling as a writer and his profession as a teacher as essentially complementary.
He was educated on three continents: B.A. (Honours) from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, M.A. from the University of Leeds in England, and Ph.D. from York University, Toronto, Canada. The wide and varied exposure accruing from this has proved very useful for his writing and teaching careers. Born in Nigeria, one of the most linguistically and culturally heterogeneous countries in the world, he learnt early in life the complexities and challenges of diversity.
He began his teaching career at the University of Ibadan in 1974 and rose to the position of full professor there in 1989. From 1993 to 1997, he was the chair of its Department of English. He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990 to 1991, and in 1991/92, an associate professor of English at the University of New Orleans, where he returned as full professor in 1997, and was selected university research professor in 2001. His areas of specialization are African literature, literature of the African diaspora, literary stylistics, sociolinguistics, and creative writing
The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within