Isidore Okpewho (1941–2016)

Autore di Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: A Casebook

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Sull'Autore

A novelist, poet, and oral literary scholar, Isidore Okpewho is currently a professor of African-American Studies and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Born at Asaba in the Delta State of Nigeria, he was educated at St. Patrick's College, Asaba, and later at mostra altro the University of Ibadan, where he earned a first class Honors B.A. degree. For six years after his graduation, he worked as an editor for Longman publishers, but he then opted for an academic career. After obtaining his Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Colorado in 1974, he joined the University of Ibadan, where he rose to the rank of full professor. As a scholar, Okpewho is well known for challenging and demolishing, through forceful arguments backed by textual and contextual evidence, several Eurocentric preconceptions about oral literature in Africa. His first book, Epic in Africa (1979), effectively ended the Eurocentric view that the epic does not exist in Africa. In his second book, Myth in Africa (1982), he offers incisive, aesthetically grounded, redefinitions of "myth" against the prevailing ritual-based definitions of the old European schools of anthropological inquiry. His radical redirections of perspective have culminated in his most recent book, African Oral Literature: Backgrounds, Character and Continuity (1992). Okpewho has also published a collection of poetry, Heritage of African Poetry, and a collection of essays, Oral Performance in Africa (1990). His creative output includes several poems published in Okike and other literary journals and three novels. His first novel, The Victims (1970), is a tragedy of domestic conflicts. His Second, The Last Duty (1976), set in the Nigerian civil war, won the African Arts Prize for Literature. His third novel, Tides, is his most recent publication. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno

Comprende i nomi: Okpewho I, Isodore Okpewho

Opere di Isidore Okpewho

Popolari Recenti

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: A Casebook (2003) 33 copie

The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities (1999) 24 copie

African Oral Literature: Backgrounds, Character, and Continuity (1892) 22 copie

Victims (1970) 22 copie

Once Upon a Kingdom: Myth, Hegemony, and Identity (1999) 20 copie

The New African Diaspora (2009) 13 copie

The Heritage of African Poetry: An Anthology of Oral and Written Poetry (1985) 12 copie

Tides (1993) 11 copie

The Epic in Africa: Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance (1979) 10 copie

Last Duty (Longman African Classics) (1976) 10 copie

Call Me by My Rightful Name (2004) 9 copie

Blood on the tides : the Ozidi Saga and oral epic narratology (2014) 4 copie

Oral Performance in Africa (Saros Star Series) (1983) 3 copie

Myth in Africa : a study of its aesthetic and cultural relevance (1983) 1 copia

Letteratura orale dell'Africa subsahariana (1993) 1 copia

Esplora le opere

Opere correlate

Baedeker's Copenhagen (1984) — alcune edizioni — 42 copie

African Literature: an anthology of criticism and theory (2007) — Collaboratore — 23 copie

Etichette

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Informazioni generali

Nome legale: Okpewho, Isidore Chukwudozi Oghenerhuele
Data di nascita: 1941-11-09
Data di morte: 2016-09-04
Luogo di sepoltura: Gate of Heaven Cemetery, East Hanover, New Jersey, USA
Sesso: male
Nazionalità: Nigeria
Luogo di nascita: Abraka, Nigeria
Luogo di morte: Binghamton, New York, USA
Istruzione: University of Denver (PhD - Comparative Literature)
University of London (BA- University College Ibadan, DLit)
Attività lavorative: novelist
literary critic
distinguished professor
editor
oral historian
Organizzazioni: State University of New York, Buffalo
University of Ibadan
Harvard University
State University of New York, Binghamton

Utenti

Recensioni

Tides! (Longman African Classics Series) di Isidore Okpewho

This Nigerian novel is written in an epistolary form. Two reporters who have been fired from the national newspaper exchange letters. The younger reporter has remained in Lagos, and the older reporter has retired to the small fishing village in the delta where he grew up. The older reporter wants nothing further to do with politics; however, he is approached by some of the fishermen in the village whose livelihood is being threatened by oil drilling activities offshore. The two reporters begin to investigate these activities and the ecological damages they are causing, and are faced with corporate brutality and government corruption.

This is an interesting story, probably much of which has some basis in fact. It raises issues that confront many developing nations. A public official tells the reporters "the usual things you would expect of a public servant: the value of oil to the economy, the oil pollution as part of the price we have to pay, the government's deep concern for the welfare of the people most immediately affected by the hazards, and so on and so forth." The reporters and the fishermen feel that the benefits to the economy come at too high a cost.

I'm not sure why the author chose to make this an epistolary novel. That form seemed to me to be awkward. However, I read it simply as a novel with two narrators, and pretty much ignored the irrelevant pleasantries exchanged in the letters.… (altro)