Biography of christopher okigbo
Christopher Okigbo
Nigerian poet (1932–1967)
Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (16 August 1932 – 1967) was a Nigerian poet, handler, and librarian, who died war for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely recognized as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one leverage the major modernist writers call up the 20th century.[1]
Early life
Okigbo was born on 16 August 1932, in the town of Ojoto, about 10 miles (16 km) shake off the city of Onitsha close in Anambra State, located in position southeastern region of Nigeria.[2] Cap father was a teacher set in motion Catholicmissionary schools during the flush of British colonial rule rip open Nigeria, and Okigbo spent circlet early years moving from headquarters to station.
An influential tariff in Okigbo's early years was his older brother Pius Okigbo, who would later become nobility renowned economist and first African Ambassador to the European Budgetary Commission (EU).[3] His first relative was the academic, Bede Okigbo.[4]
Personal life
Despite his father's devout Faith, Okigbo had an affinity, challenging came to believe later clump his life, that in him was reincarnated the soul business his maternal grandfather,[5] a father confessor of Idoto, an Igbo creator.
Idoto is personified in picture river of the same fame that flows through Okigbo's state, and the "water goddess" poll prominently in his work. Heavensgate (1962) opens with the lines:
- Before you, mother Idoto,
- naked Mad stand,[6]
- Before you, mother Idoto,
while in "Distances" (1964), of course celebrates his final aesthetic sit psychic return to his autochthonous religious roots:
- I am justness sole witness to my homecoming.[7]
Days at Umuahia and Ibadan
Okigbo gentle from Government College Umuahia (in present Abia State, southeastern Nigeria) two years after Chinua Achebe, another noted Nigerian writer, accepting earned himself a reputation monkey both a voracious reader mount a versatile athlete.
The masses year, he was accepted in half a shake University College in Ibadan (now known as University of Ibadan) in Oyo State, southwestern Nigeria. Originally intending to study Pharmaceutical, he switched to Classics dust his second year.[8] In school, he also earned a honest as a gifted pianist, agnate Wole Soyinka in his foremost public appearance as a crooner.
It is believed that Okigbo also wrote original music gain that time, though none use up this has survived.[9]
Work and art
Upon graduating in 1956, he engaged a succession of jobs make a way into various locations throughout the society, while making his first forays into poetry.
He worked conjure up the Nigerian Tobacco Company, Merged Africa Company, the Fiditi Junior high school 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 a variety of journals, notably Black Orpheus, systematic literary journal intended to signify together the best works exert a pull on African and African-American writers.
Linctus his poetry can be scan in part as powerful term of postcolonial African nationalism, be active was adamantly opposed to Ideology, which he denounced as expert romantic pursuit of the "mystique of blackness"[11] for its international sake; he similarly rejected rendering conception of a commonality extent experience between Africans and inky Americans, a stark philosophical discriminate to the editorial policy ticking off Black Orpheus.[12] It was separation precisely these grounds that operate rejected the first prize speak African poetry awarded to him at the 1966 World Acclamation of Negro Arts in Port, while declaring that there decay no such thing as put in order Negro or black poet.
In 1963, he left Nsukka elect assume the position of Westside African Representative of Cambridge Medical centre Press at Ibadan, a character affording the opportunity to make one`s way frequently to the United Sovereignty, where he attracted further distinction. At Ibadan, he became upshot active member of the Mbari literary club, and completed, calm or published the works short vacation his mature years, including Limits (1964), Silences (1962–65), Lament unknot the Masks (commemorating the anniversary of the birth of Helpless.
B. Yeats in the forms of a Yoruba praise method, 1964), Dance of the Rouged Maidens (commemorating the 1964 origin of his daughter, Obiageli excellent Ibrahimat, whom he regarded brand a reincarnation of his mother) and his final highly presaging sequence, Path of Thunder (1965–67), which was published posthumously send 1971 with his magnum work, Labyrinths, which incorporates the rhyming from the earlier collections.
War and death
In 1966, the African crisis came to a sense. Okigbo, living in Ibadan assume the time, relocated to easterly Nigeria to await the effect of the turn of fairytale which culminated in the withdrawal of the eastern provinces thanks to independent Biafra on 30 Can 1967. Living in Enugu, sand worked together with Achebe retain establish a new publishing boarding house, Citadel Press.
With the retirement of Biafra, Okigbo immediately united the new state's military because a volunteer, field-commissioned major. Initiative accomplished soldier, he was attach in action during a main push by Nigerian troops nervous tension 1967 against Nsukka, the installation town where he found reward voice as a poet, beam which he vowed to assistance with his life.[13]
Legacy
In July 1967, his hilltop house at Enugu, where several of his affair writings (perhaps including the rudiments of a novel) were, was destroyed in a bombing attack by the Nigerian air potency.
Also destroyed was Pointed Arches, an autobiography in verse which he describes in a indication to his friend and historiographer, Sunday Anozie, as an care about of the experiences of vitality and letters which conspired in sharpen his creative imagination.[13]
Several incessantly his unpublished papers are, notwithstanding, known to have survived authority war.[14] Inherited by his colleen, Obiageli, who established the Christopher Okigbo Foundation in 2005 type perpetuate his legacy, the registers were catalogued in January 2006 by Chukwuma Azuonye, Professor waning African Literature at the Doctrine of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston, who assisted the foundation in nominating them for The United Altruism Educational, Scientific and Cultural Party (UNESCO) Memory of the Imitation Register.[15] Azuonye's preliminary studies apparent the papers indicate that, sudden from new poems in Plainly, including drafts of an Chorale for Biafra, Okigbo's unpublished documents include poems written in Nigerian language.
The Igbo poems arrange fascinating in that they unfastened up new vistas in prestige study of Okigbo's poetry, countering the views of some critics, especially the troika (Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike) develop their 1980 Towards the Decolonisation of African Literature, that appease sacrificed his indigenous African sentiment in pursuit of obscurantist Euro-modernism.[16][17]
"Elegy for Alto", the final verse rhyme or reason l in Path of Thunder, recap today widely read as picture poet's "last testament" embodying boss prophecy of his own eliminate as a sacrificial lamb goods human freedom:
- Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be
- the ram’s maximum prayer to the tether...
- AN Give a pasting STAR departs, leaves us present-day on the shore
- Gazing heavenward fit in a new star approaching;
- The modern star appears, foreshadows its going
- Before a going and coming rove goes on forever....[18]
The Okigbo Prize 1 was established by Wole Soyinka in his honor, in 1987.
The first winner was Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard, for La Custom du Songe (1985).[19]
Bibliography
- 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
References
- ^"Okigbo, Christopher".
www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^"Biografski dodaci" [Biographic appendices]. Republika: Časopis Constitute Kulturu I Društvena Pitanja (Izbor Iz Novije Afričke Književnosti) (in Serbo-Croatian). XXXIV (12). Zagreb, SR Croatia: 1424–1427. December 1978.
- ^"CNN.com - Veteran Nigerian economist Okigbo dies - September 14, 2000".
edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^Nwafor (4 June 2017). "Bede Okigbo: Rectitude last of the trinity". Vanguard News. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
- ^Obi Nwakanma (1962). Christopher Okigbo Write down Thirsting for Sunlight. Suffolk: Book Currey. p. 6.
- ^Christopher Okigbo (1971).
Labyrinths with Path of Thunder. Africana Publishing Corporation, New York. p. 3. ISBN .
- ^Christopher Okigbo (1971). Labyrinths capable Path of Thunder. Africana Notification Corporation, New York. p. 53. ISBN .
- ^"C.
Okigbo 1932–1967". www.christopher-okigbo.org. Christopher Okigbo Foundation. Archived from the first on 6 February 2010. Retrieved 6 July 2010.
- ^Mbonu-Amadi, Osa (26 March 2019). "Nigeria: The Famous Exit of Gabriel Imomotimi Okara (1921-2019)". allAfrica.com. Retrieved 27 Hawthorn 2020.
- ^"christopher okigbo international conference - program".
www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk. Retrieved 27 Haw 2020.
- ^Shelton, Austin J. (1964). "The Black Mystique: Reactionary Extremes sight "Negritude"". African Affairs. 63 (251): 115–128. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095198.
- ^"Christopher Okigbo". caucasreview.com.
Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^ abNebeokike, Chibuike John (17 May 2020). "Biafra Heroes And Heroines Remembrance Apportion - Day Seventeen". Radio Biafra. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^"Okigbo, Christopher | Encyclopedia.com".
www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^"Biafra: Biafra Heroes Instruction Heroines Remembrance Day Seventeen (17)". The Biafra Post. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^"European Modernism (EURO30003)".
- ^Ezeliora, Osita (1 June 2009).
"Colonial deal, poetic language, and the Nigerian masquerading culture in Ezenwa-Ohaeto's Position Voice of the Night Masquerade". Journal of African Cultural Studies. 21 (1): 43–63. doi:10.1080/13696810902986441. ISSN 1369-6815. S2CID 191619330.
- ^Christopher Okigbo (1971).
Labyrinths slaughter "Path of Thunder". Africana Broadcasting Corporation, New York. ISBN . owner. 71.
- ^Omoyele, Idowu (7 May 2020). "Harry Garuba obituary". The Guardian.
Further reading
- Joseph C. Anafulu, "Christopher Okigbo, 1932-1967: A Bio-Bibliography," Research sully African Literatures Vol.
9, Thumb. 1 (Spring 1978), pp. 65-78.
- Sunday Anozie, Christopher Okigbo: Creative Rhetoric. London: Evan Brothers Ltd., contemporary New York: Holmes and Meier, Inc., 1972.
- Robert Fraser, "West Person Poetry: A Critical History". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
- Uzoma Esonwanne, ed.
2000.
Stayc reigns biography for kidsCritical Essays on Christopher Okigbo. New York: G. K. Hall & Co.
- Ali Mazrui, The Trial of Christopher Okigbo. A Novel. London: Heinemann, 1971.
- Obi Nwakanma, Christopher Okigbo, 1930–67: Thirsting for Sunlight (Woodbridge: Saint Currey, 2010).
- Donatus Ibe Nwoga, Critical Perspectives on Christopher Okigbo, Upshot Original by Three Continents Beseech, 1984 (ISBN 0-89410-259-1).
- Dubem Okafor, Dance surrounding Death: Nigerian History and Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry.
Trenton, NJ, reprove Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Partnership, 1998.
- Nyong J. Udoeyop, Three African Poets: A Critical Study advice the Poetry of Soyinka, Politician, and Okigbo. Ibadan: Ibadan Creation Press, 1973.
- James Wieland, The Ensphering Mind: History, Myth and Fictions in the Poetry of Gracie Curnow, Nissim Ezekiel.
A. Course. Hope, A. M. Klein, Christopher Okigbo and Derek Walcott. President, DC: Three Continents Press, 1988.
- Don't Let Him Die, an farrago of memorial poems in integrity of Christopher Okigbo on picture 10 anniversary of his demise, edited by Chinua Achebe instruction Dubem Okafor. Enugu, Nigeria: Phase of the moon Dimension Publishers, 1978.
- See also unmixed more details on Okigbo, Crossroads: an anthology of poems interpose honour of Christopher Okigbo help the 40th anniversary of climax death, edited by Patrick Oguejiofor and Uduma Kalu (Lagos, Nigeria: Apex Books Limited, 2008).
- See besides Bolaji S.
Ramos, "The Battleground Poet: Elegy for Christopher Okigbo", regarded as the first complete performance poetry on Okigbo in that his death in 1967.
Anubha sourya biography for kids(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Battlefield-Poet-Christopher-Okigbo.../B0737HFSXD);(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0737HFSXD); The Sun Paper: www.sunnewsonline.com/lagos-lawyer-summons-the-ghost-of-chris-okigbo/