Renowned Writer And Scholar, J.P. Clark, Dies At 85

 
                                         *J.P. Clark 

One of Nigeria’s pioneer writers and retired professor of Literature, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo, is dead. He died Tuesday morning, October 13, 2020. He was 85. 

A statement jointly signed by Professor C. C. Clark and Mr. Ilaye Clark, for the family, revealed that Professor Clark-Bekederemo died surrounded by his immediate family. 

The statement reads: “The Clark-Fuludu Bekederemo family of Kiagbodo Town, Delta State, wishes to announce that Emeritus Professor of Literature and Renowned Writer, Prof. John Pepper Clark, has finally dropped his pen in the early hours of today, Tuesday, 13 October 2020. Prof. J. P. Clark has paddled on to the great beyond in comfort of his wife, children and siblings, around him. 

“The family appreciates your prayers at this time. Other details will be announced later by the family.”

Late Clark-Bekederemo who is the younger brother of Ijaw leader and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, was born in Kiagbodo, Delta State, on April 6, 1935. 

*Clark, Achebe and Soyinka at Dodan Barracks, Lagos, the then seat of government, on March 5, 1986,  to appeal to Military President, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, to spare the life of late Gen Mamman Vatsa, a poet, who was accused of plotting a coup. Vatsa was eventually executed by the Babangida regime. 

A record in Britannica.com states that “while at the University of Ibadan, Clark founded The Horn, a magazine of student poetry. After graduating with a degree in English in 1960, he began his career as writer and journalist by working as a Nigerian government information officer and then as the features and editorial writer for the Daily Express in Lagos (1960–62).

"A year’s study at Princeton University on a foundation grant resulted in his America, Their America (1964), in which he attacks American middle-class values, from capitalism to black American life-styles. After a year’s research at Ibadan’s Institute of African Studies, he became a lecturer in English at the University of Lagos and coeditor of the literary journal Black Orpheus."

His first collection of poetry, Poems was published in 1962. It was followed by A Reed In The Tide (1965), Casualties: Poems 1966–68 (1970), A Decade Of Tongues (1981), State Of The Union (1985, and Mandela And Other Poems (1988).

His first three plays were published under the title, Three Plays in 1964. Song Of The Goat was performed in 1961, The Masquerade (1965) and The Raft 1978.

He is survived by his wife, Professor Ebun Odutola Clark, the founder and Managing Director of the Lagos School of English and Mathematics (LASEM), and their children.  

Clark was a contemporary of Nigeria’s leading literary ambassadors, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo. They were all products of the University College, Ibadan.