Literatures of Which We Know Too Little: Nigerian Literature

Nigeria is the African country with the largest impact in literature, both in volume and international  recognition – we are talking here about literature written after 1960.

Historically, pre-colonial tradition of Nigerian literarature is oral, with a solid verbal art civilization  who has long preceded the introduction of the written word.

Of all the forms, the oldest and most used was poetry – one of the oldest examples is Esu pipe, an invocation sung for Esu, the youngest Nigerian primordial god of the pantheon.

Other examples of oral  Nigerian literature are Ekun Iyawo Suite song, Iwi or Esa Engugun – a song for  ancestral mask game.

Nigerian literature written in English language first developed in the matrix provided by Western imperialism and colonization in parallel with the missionary and the first writers were Europeans or freed Nigerian slaves.

For example Olaudah Equiano, who wrote the first  text of Africa in the English-language (an autobiography under the title The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustava the African), or Samuel Ajayi Crowther, who translated the Bible into the  Yoruba and Igbo language.

International recognition of Nigerian literature was obtained from the novel The Palmwine Drinkard, written by Amos Tutuola  and published in 1952, a story full of magic and folklore narrated in a  domesticated English (actually an English translation of the Yoruba language).

But the real turning point occurred a few years later, in 1958, with the publication of his novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

A so-called second generation of modern Nigerian writers, enter the scene in the 1970s, have refined writings and atmosphere of the literary scene to initiate a concept of nation “Alter/native”.

Zulu Sofola (1935 – 1995) is the first female Nigerian playwrighter and Flora Nwapa  the first African writer published in London.

The Everest of Nigerian literature was reached in 1986, when writer Wole Soyinka (photo) received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Some of his works include The Lion and the Jewel (1963), Death and the King’s Horseman (1975) and From Zia, with Love (1992).

In conclusion Nigerian literature, although very young, is proved one eloquent, dynamic, able to export culture and traditions across borders and to save and beautify in the eyes of the world, through the collective effort of writers, the daily image of a country shattered  and tense .