FG Palliatives: A Grain Of Rice For Each Household!

 By Tunde Olusunle

If you were a student of English in my generation, there were au­thors and titles, African and for­eign, you just had to encounter. Nigerian writers like Daniel Fagunwa, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chris­topher Okigbo, John Pepper Bekeder­emo-Clark, Timothy Aluko, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi, Ola Rotimi, Zulu Sofola, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, all members of the “first generation” of Nigerian writers; they were irrevo­cable constants.

On the African scene, Nadine Gordimer, Dennis Brutus, Pe­ter Abrahams, Lenrie Peters, Alan Pa­ton, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Meja Mwangi, Simon Gikandi, Camara Laye, Kofi Awoonor, Kofi Anyidoho, Ayi Kwei Armah, Sembene Ousmane, Frantz Fanon, Sonne Mbella Dipoko, Nagu­ib Mahfouz and so on were featured variously on our reading lists. Indeed, in several instances, we had prior ex­posure to the works of some of these icons in the syllabuses of our ordinary school leaving and higher school cer­tificate examinations respectively. In our multi-generic poetry, prose, drama, oral literature and stylistics classes in the university, these legends were fur­ther encountered in various ways.

A Toast To Odia Ofeimun At 73

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

There is no better way of introducing Odia Ofeimun than pointedly stressing that “Odia Ofeimun is Odia Ofeimun!” Enough said. 

*Ofeimun

Poet, publisher, editor, activist, polemicist, mentor, politician, columnist, factory worker, writer, dance-drama exponent, public intellectual, critic etc, Odia Ofeimun has packed uncountable lifetimes into one tumultuous lifespan.