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. 

N.B. The weeklies are not updated and reflect the state of information at a given point in time.

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Cyprian Ekwensi

Cyprian Ekwensi (Source: English Wikipedia based on https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2021/12/01/nigeria-today-is-like-a-yarn-by-cyprian-ekwensi/)On 4 November 2007, Nigerian novelist, short-story writer and children’s author Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi died in Enugu at the age of 86. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature in 1968 and the Nigeria Book Fair Trust's Life Achievement Award in 2004.

Cyprian Ekwensi was born in Minna, Niger State, on 26 September 1921. He was educated at the Universities of Ibadan and Ghana, and at the Chelsea School of Pharmacy. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic. He served as chair of the Bureau of External Publicity in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War.

Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 'People of the City' was his first book to garner international attention. His novel 'Drummer Boy' (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful description of the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was 'Jagua Nana' (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, 'Jagua Nana's Daughter'.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Selected publications

Publications about Cyprian Ekwensi and his work

Tradition et modernité dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Cyprian Ekwensi : constance et évolution / Umar Muhammad Dogondaji. - Paris : L'Harmattan, 2018

Of elephants and blindmen : Cyprian Ekwensi and the development of modern criticism of Nigerian literature / Patrick Oloko.
In: Ihafa: a journal of African studies, volume 5, number 4, 1-22, 2012

African children's and youth literature / Osayimwense Osa. - New York [etc.] : Twayne Publishers [etc.], cop. 1995

The essential Ekwensi : a literary celebration of Cyprian Ekwensi's sixty-fifth birthday / Ernest Emenyonu. - Ibadan : Heinemann Educational Books, 1987

Survive the peace : Cyprian Ekwensi as a political novelist / Peter Nazareth. - Waltham : African Studies Association, 1977

Publications by Cyprian Ekwensi 

Restless city and Christmas gold / Cyprian Ekwensi. Trenton, NJ [etc.] : Africa World Press [etc.], 2004

An African night's entertainment / Cyprian Ekwensi. - Lagos : African Universities Press, 1966

Lokotown and other stories / Cyprian Ekwensi. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1966

Beautiful feathers / Cyprian Ekwensi. - London : Hutchinson, 1963

Burning grass : a story of the Fulani of Northern Nigeria / Cyprian Ekwensi. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1962

The Works of Cyprian Ekwensi and his Legacy

Timeline of Nigerian male novelists via DBpedia and Wikidata

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