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.
