Nigerian Times

Adeleke “Mai Nasara” Adeyemi, author, The Missing Clock , winner of the 2011 Nigeria Prize for Literature lifting up his trophy at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos on February 6, 2012, with the Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka standing behind on the stage. Meet Me at the Library: Getting Nigeria to Book a Date with Development. Being a speech by Adeleke “Mai Nasara” Adeyemi, author, The Missing Clock : Winner, The Nigeria Prize for Literature , 2011; delivered at Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos on February 6, 2012, at Public Presentation and Award Ceremony, hosted by Nigeria LNG Ltd. Protocols A certain 18th century English poet woke up one day and penned the following words: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”. I am not sure what Alexander Pope was thinking about that particular day but I know he was right about the human heart and its penchant for hope. It was sheer hope that drove me to ...

Chinua Achebe There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe The news of the much awaited Chinua Achebe ’s magnum opus on the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970 really excited me in the midst of the mourning for the passing of Ikemba Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojuwku, the heroic and symbolic secessionist leader of Biafra , the raison d'être of that catastrophic uncivil war that claimed over a million lives of mostly helpless children who died from kwashiorkor caused by starvation which was used as a weapon of war by the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The late warlord himself promised to write his own authentic book on his leadership of the ill-fated Biafra, but till his death on Saturday November 26, 2011, there was no information on the fulfillment of his promise. Achebe’s Biafran war memoir would have been the kind of book Ojukwu should have written, but was either reluctant to do so or lacked the genius. Because the only published account of his historical role in t...

The 13th Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) opened this Thursday amidst the euphoria of the 81st birthday of our literary icon Chinua Achebe and the good news of British Nigerian playwright Janice Okoh's clinching the £16,000 Bruntwood Prize for Play-writing with her play Three Birds . It is the competition's largest single award to date. She is also popularly known for her play Egusi Soup that was premiered at the 2009 Hotbed Festival and taken on tour by Menagerie. Okoh was also a runner-up for the 2011 Verity Bargate Award for The Real House . The noble grand old man of Nigerian Literature, Prof. Chinua Achebe celebrated his 81st birthday on November 16. . Bruntwood Prize winner Janice Okoh receiving her prize from Maxine Peake . LABAF which is the biggest book fair and art event in West Africa started in the morning with the second publishers forum at the Goethe Institut on the 4th floor of the City Hall on the Lagos Island. The forum focused on "THE BOOK IN THE AGE ...

Amazon presents the much awaited book In the House of Dogs [Kindle Edition] by Michael Chima Ekenyerengozi (Author). “In the House of Dogs” is an unapologetic mirror of the contemporary Nigerian society with polemical commentaries and essays with humorous anecdotes on the Nigerian; focusing on critical issues of education, romance, marriage, religion, politics and other matters in twelve chapters by a single narrator. Previewers have compared it to Chinua Achebe’s The Trouble with Nigeria , but noted that it has more depth since it has addressed more contemporary issues on the facts of life in Nigeria in the first decade of the 21st century within universal perspectives. You can order for this special Kindle edition on http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0065KCBE2 or click on the cover image. Tweet

Chinua Achebe smiling The literary world is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" . Many articles and features are celebrating the 50th anniversary of "Things Fall Apart" .. No other African novel has been so highly glorified as Chinua Achebe ’s classic "Things Fall Apart" . It is the most popular African novel in English and in over 30 translations since the publication in 1958. The first time I read "Things Fall Apart" . was in 1975 and loved it. I read the other novels Achebe wrote after "Things Fall Apart" , and I regard "Arrow of God" as the best so far. But the popularity of "Things Fall Apart" has overshadowed the importance and significance of "Arrow of God". The eaglet that was learning how to fly in "Things Fall Apart" , soared as an eagle in "Arrow of God" and the novel won ...