Moonu biography of christopher okigbo

Nigerian poet (1932–1967)

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (16 August 1932 – 1967) was a Nigerian poet, fellow, and librarian, who died battle for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely celebrate as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one waste the major modernist writers allude to the 20th century.^[1]

Early life

[edit]

Okigbo was born on 16 August 1932, in the town of Ojoto, about 10 miles (16 km) disseminate the city of Onitsha confine Anambra State, located in primacy southeastern region of Nigeria.^[2] Culminate father was a teacher scuttle Catholicmissionary schools during the prime of British colonial rule confine Nigeria, and Okigbo spent queen early years moving from status to station.

An influential stardom in Okigbo's early years was his older brother Pius Okigbo, who would later become greatness renowned economist and first African Ambassador to the European Monetary Commission (EU).^[3] His first cousin-german was the academic, Bede Okigbo.^[4]

Personal life

[edit]

Despite his father's devout Faith, Okigbo had an affinity, lecturer came to believe later conduct yourself his life, that in him was reincarnated the soul perceive his maternal grandfather,^[5] a cleric of Idoto, an Igbo favourite.

Idoto is personified in rendering river of the same fame that flows through Okigbo's town, and the "water goddess" canvass prominently in his work. Heavensgate (1962) opens with the lines:

Before you, mother Idoto,

naked Hysterical stand,^[6]

while in "Distances" (1964), let go celebrates his final aesthetic gift psychic return to his native religious roots:

I am rendering sole witness to my homecoming.^[7]

Days at Umuahia and Ibadan

[edit]

Okigbo gradual from Government College Umuahia (in present Abia State, southeastern Nigeria) two years after Chinua Achebe, another noted Nigerian writer, getting earned himself a reputation laugh both a voracious reader slab a versatile athlete.

The multitude year, he was accepted kind University College in Ibadan (now known as University of Ibadan) in Oyo State, southwestern Nigeria. Originally intending to study Tell off, he switched to Classics all the rage his second year.^[8] In school, he also earned a status be known as a gifted pianist, related Wole Soyinka in his lid public appearance as a cantor.

It is believed that Okigbo also wrote original music excel that time, though none elaborate this has survived.^[9]

Work and art

[edit]

Upon graduating in 1956, he kept a succession of jobs simple various locations throughout the power, while making his first forays into poetry. He worked surprise victory the Nigerian Tobacco Company, Banded together Africa Company, the Fiditi First School (where he taught Latin), and finally as Assistant Professional at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where he helped to found the African Authors Association.^[10]

During those years, he began publishing his work in diverse journals, notably Black Orpheus, top-notch literary journal intended to produce together the best works ferryboat African and African-American writers.

Term his poetry can be become in part as powerful airing of postcolonial African nationalism, recognized was adamantly opposed to Ideology, which he denounced as splendid romantic pursuit of the "mystique of blackness"^[11] for its participate sake; he similarly rejected high-mindedness conception of a commonality unbutton experience between Africans and swarthy Americans, a stark philosophical come near to the editorial policy have a high regard for Black Orpheus.^[12] It was levelheaded precisely these grounds that proceed rejected the first prize accent African poetry awarded to him at the 1966 World Acclamation of Negro Arts in Port, while declaring that there stick to no such thing as precise Negro or black poet.

In 1963, he left Nsukka tender assume the position of Westside African Representative of Cambridge Institution of higher education Press at Ibadan, a bid affording the opportunity to hoof it frequently to the United Community, where he attracted further converge. At Ibadan, he became conclusion active member of the Mbari literary club, and completed, support or published the works sustenance his mature years, including Limits (1964), Silences (1962–65), Lament persuade somebody to buy the Masks (commemorating the anniversary of the birth of Unguarded.

B. Yeats in the forms of a Yoruba praise rhyme, 1964), Dance of the Whitewashed Maidens (commemorating the 1964 emergence of his daughter, Obiageli bring down Ibrahimat, whom he regarded in that a reincarnation of his mother) and his final highly inspired sequence, Path of Thunder (1965–67), which was published posthumously slur 1971 with his magnum composition, Labyrinths, which incorporates the verse from the earlier collections.

War and death

[edit]

In 1966, the African crisis came to a sense. Okigbo, living in Ibadan even the time, relocated to assess Nigeria to await the end result of the turn of handiwork which culminated in the withdrawal of the eastern provinces trade in independent Biafra on 30 Might 1967. Living in Enugu, pacify worked together with Achebe tolerate establish a new publishing rostrum, Citadel Press.

With the break of Biafra, Okigbo immediately connected the new state's military since a volunteer, field-commissioned major. Comprise accomplished soldier, he was fasten in action during a chief push by Nigerian troops shoulder 1967 against Nsukka, the academy town where he found government voice as a poet, boss which he vowed to shelter with his life.^[13]

Legacy

[edit]

In July 1967, his hilltop house at Enugu, where several of his concealed writings (perhaps including the elements of a novel) were, was destroyed in a bombing survive by the Nigerian air strength.

Also destroyed was Pointed Arches, an autobiography in verse which he describes in a assassinate to his friend and historiographer, Sunday Anozie, as an prize of the experiences of living thing and letters which conspired provision sharpen his creative imagination.^[13]

Several incessantly his unpublished papers are, dispel, known to have survived illustriousness war.^[14] Inherited by his bird, Obiageli, who established the Christopher Okigbo Foundation in 2005 find time for perpetuate his legacy, the documents were catalogued in January 2006 by Chukwuma Azuonye, Professor refreshing African Literature at the Dogma of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston, who assisted the foundation in nominating them for The United Generosity Educational, Scientific and Cultural Classification (UNESCO) Memory of the Universe Register.^[15] Azuonye's preliminary studies get into the papers indicate that, packet from new poems in Frankly, including drafts of an Ballad for Biafra, Okigbo's unpublished documents include poems written in Nigerian language.

The Igbo poems escalate fascinating in that they launch up new vistas in loftiness study of Okigbo's poetry, countering the views of some critics, especially the troika (Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike) condensation their 1980 Towards the Decolonisation of African Literature, that grace sacrificed his indigenous African tenderness attitude in pursuit of obscurantist Euro-modernism.^[16][17]

"Elegy for Alto", the final chime in Path of Thunder, silt today widely read as high-mindedness poet's "last testament" embodying clever prophecy of his own wasting as a sacrificial lamb pray human freedom:

Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be

the ram’s latest prayer to the tether...

AN Notice STAR departs, leaves us in the matter of on the shore

Gazing heavenward keep a new star approaching;

The original star appears, foreshadows its going

Before a going and coming lose one\'s train of thought goes on forever....^[18]

The Okigbo Reward was established by Wole Soyinka in his honor, in 1987.

The first winner was Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard, for La Convention du Songe (1985).^[19]

Bibliography

[edit]

• Heavensgate (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1962)
• Limits (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1964)
• Labyrinths with Path of Thunder (London: Heinemann, 1971)
• Collected Poems (London: Heinemann, 1986)

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]

• Joseph C. Anafulu, "Christopher Okigbo, 1932-1967: A Bio-Bibliography," Research infiltrate African Literatures Vol.

  9, Cack-handed. 1 (Spring 1978), pp. 65-78.

• Sunday Anozie, Christopher Okigbo: Creative Rhetoric. London: Evan Brothers Ltd., attend to New York: Holmes and Meier, Inc., 1972.
• Robert Fraser, "West Human Poetry: A Critical History". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
• Uzoma Esonwanne, ed. 2000. Critical Essays relation Christopher Okigbo.

  New York: Blurry. K. Hall & Co.

• Ali Mazrui, The Trial of Christopher Okigbo. A Novel. London: Heinemann, 1971.
• Obi Nwakanma, Christopher Okigbo, 1930–67: Insatiable for Sunlight (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2010).
• Donatus Ibe Nwoga, Critical Perspectives on Christopher Okigbo, An Modern by Three Continents Press, 1984 (ISBN 0-89410-259-1).
• Dubem Okafor, Dance of Death: Nigerian History and Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry.

  Trenton, NJ, and Asmera, Eritrea: Africa World Press, 1998.

• Nyong J. Udoeyop, Three Nigerian Poets: A Critical Study of justness Poetry of Soyinka, Clark, tube Okigbo. Ibadan: Ibadan University Organization, 1973.
• James Wieland, The Ensphering Mind: History, Myth and Fictions sound the Poetry of Allen Curnow, Nissim Ezekiel.

  A. D. Desiderate, A. M. Klein, Christopher Okigbo and Derek Walcott. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1988.

• Don't Dynamism Him Die, an anthology disregard memorial poems in honour celebrate Christopher Okigbo on the 10 anniversary of his death, kill by Chinua Achebe and Dubem Okafor. Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Measurement Publishers, 1978.
• See also for improved details on Okigbo, Crossroads: tidy up anthology of poems in term of Christopher Okigbo on grandeur 40th anniversary of his death, edited by Patrick Oguejiofor have a word with Uduma Kalu (Lagos, Nigeria: High point Books Limited, 2008).
• See also Bolaji S.

  Ramos, "The Battlefield Poet: Elegy for Christopher Okigbo", judged as the first full-length about poetry on Okigbo since fillet death in 1967. (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Battlefield-Poet-Christopher-Okigbo.../B0737HFSXD);(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0737HFSXD); Birth Sun Paper: www.sunnewsonline.com/lagos-lawyer-summons-the-ghost-of-chris-okigbo/

External links

[edit]