A Poolside Sit-Out With Niyi Osundare In Abuja

 By Tunde Olusunle

Typical of the extremely organised personality that he is, the multiple award-winning poet, Niyi Osundare, had already “served notice” of his imminent visit to Nigeria, weeks before he came. He had been invited by the organisers of the “Nigerian National Order of Merit,” (NNOM), to deliver a lecture at the 2022 edition of the Annual Forum of NNOM Laureates, in Abuja.

*Olusunle, Osundare and Nyitse

His presentation was titled “Poetry and the Human Voice”. The event was scheduled for Wednesday December 7, 2022, and the New Orleans, US-based Osundare needed to “forewarn” those of us who are his younger kith, that he was coming to our city. He does have a good number of we his mentees, inspired by his craft, in the Federal Capital Territory and it was going to be our pleasure to have him around.

Chinua Achebe: The Eagle On Iroko At 91

 By DAN AMOR   

Prof. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, easily one of the world's most popular and celebrated novelists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries would have turned 91 years today having been born on November 16, 1930. Yet, amidst the torrent of tributes and acclamations that heralded the transition of Professor Achebe to higher glory on March 21, 2013 (more than 8 years ago), at Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, some hacks or literary kill-joys still found space to circulate that Achebe’s style of writing and literary philosophy were not original or sophisticated enough to attract the sympathy of the Nobel Committee.  

Achebe 

That is to say that the whole gamut of Achebe’s literary corpus was not deserving of the Nobel Prize for literature. Whereas the import of this anniversary piece is not about the politics of Achebe’s world view as a global citizen, no amount of false-hood and propaganda can diminish the fact that he was one of the most cited twentieth-century thinkers and quintessential intellectuals. While this may not be surprising for a man who had authored one of the most influential novels in world literature – and had changed the way the world at large appreciates the African cosmology and ontology – Chinua Achebe remains a conundrum to most people.