Wole Soyinka’s The Trial of Brother Jero and Ngugi wa Thiongo’s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi dramatise trial in different, compelling strata through creative literary imagination. While the lead character in Soyinka’s play Brother Jero is confronted with psychological and…
Wole Soyinka: Has the man died? — Promise Adiele PhD
Wole Soyinka is by every intellectual and academic classification an iconic figure. His reputation blossomed after he won the Nobel Laureate in 1986 having distinguished himself as a literary genius. For involving in the Nigeria/Biafra war, the Yakubu Gowon atrocious…
The silencing of who we are — Tara Aisida
I was on X (Twitter) recently and read this tweet by Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, who said of his famous father Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan celebrated and acclaimed writer and academic, “My father @NgugiWaThiongo_ physically abused my late mother –…
Before japa I rocked the US & Canada — Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Japa is not for me and I’m not even in the mood to visit any foreign country no matter how people venerate their national currency. A lot of characters make so much noise about fleeing Nigeria and going abroad in…
Today belongs to Chinua Achebe — Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Today, November 16, belongs to one man who conquered the world for Mother Africa. In the words of the great Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiongo, “Achebe bestrides generations and geographies. Every country in Africa claims him as their own.” On…
#Labaf2019 – “Indigenous Literature and Translation” seminar
How do works published in indigenous languages travel when translated in English? What, if anything, is lost in translation and more to the point, do we need to realize indigenous literature in the language of the colonizer or should we…