Library Weekly

The ASCL's Library Weekly is our library’s weekly spotlight on African people and events. Inspired by the SciHiBlog, this service is based on information retrieved from Wikipedia and Wikidata and is completed with selected titles from the ASCL Library Catalogue.

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Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Okigbo (Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0) On 20 September 1967, Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the 20th century.

Okigbo was born on 16 August 1932, in Ojoto. His father was a teacher in Catholic missionary schools, and Okigbo spent his early years moving from station to station. Okigbo graduated from Government College Umuahia (in present Abia State, Nigeria) two years after Chinua Achebe, having earned himself a reputation as both a voracious reader and a versatile athlete. The following year, he was accepted to University College in Ibadan (now known as University of Ibadan). Originally intending to study Medicine, he switched to Classics in his second year.

Upon graduating in 1956, he held a succession of jobs in various locations throughout the country, while making his first forays into poetry. He worked at the Nigerian Tobacco Company, United Africa Company, the Fiditi Grammar School (where he taught Latin), and finally as Assistant Librarian at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where he helped to found the African Authors Association. During those years, he began publishing his work in various journals, notably Black Orpheus, a literary journal intended to bring together the best works of African and African-American writers.

In 1963, he left Nsukka to assume the position of West African Representative of Cambridge University Press at Ibadan, a position affording the opportunity to travel frequently to the United Kingdom, where he attracted further attention. At Ibadan, he became an active member of the Mbari literary club, and completed, composed or published the works of his mature years, including 'Limits' (1964), 'Silences' (1962–65), and 'Lament of the Masks' (1964).

With the secession of Biafra, Okigbo immediately joined the new state's military as a volunteer, field-commissioned major. He was killed in action during a major push by Nigerian troops against Nsukka.

(Source: Wikipedia)