Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. - Literature (4)

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Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by IGBOSON2: 1:35pm On Apr 21, 2015

I love novels i no go lie! They posses powers to transport you to a magical world of make-believe, and help you to get lost in the moment! Nothing beats staying indoors on a wet and dreary day, and losing yourself in a captivating novel.....travelling back in time to any particular time and place of the authors choosing!

7 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by SeverusSnape(m): 1:35pm On Apr 21, 2015

nagoma:
CYPERIAN EKWENSI

I always wonder wonder why this great Nigeria writer Ekwensi is always underrated! Ekwensi was far greater than many in that list and would normally be close behind the first or the second best in this list.
These are some of Ekwensi works, ( people of the city was my best, but I also loved Burning grass, loko town and all. Jagua Nana was my first contact with pidgin English - most entertaining) .

When Love Whispers (1948)
An African Night's Entertainment (1948)
The Boa Suitor (1949)
The Leopard's Claw (1950)
People of the City (London: Andrew Dakers, 1954)
The Drummer Boy (1960)
The Passport of Mallam Ilia (written 1948, published 1960)
Jagua Nana (1961)
Burning Grass (1961)
An African Nights Entertainment (1962)
Beautiful Feathers (novel; London: Hutchinson, 1963)
Rainmaker (collection of short stories; 1965)
Iska (London: Hutchinson, 1966)
Lokotown (collection of short stories; 1966)
Restless City and Christmas Gold (1975)
Divided We Stand: a Novel of the Nigerian Civil War (1980)
Motherless Baby (Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Company, 1980)
Jagua Nana's Daughter (1987)
Behind the Convent Wall (1987)
The Great Elephant Bird (Evans Brothers, 1990
Gone to Mecca (Heinemann Educational Books, 1991)
Jagua Nana's Daughter (1993)
Masquerade Time (children’s book; London: Chelsea House Publishing; Jaws Maui, 1994)
Cash on Delivery (2007, collection of short stories)

1 Like

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Buonsenso: 1:38pm On Apr 21, 2015

Volksfuhrer:

You still have not shown why Achebe's TFA is better than Okri's Famished Road. You only reduced your choice to taste, which isn't objective. Ranking presupposes an objective criterion, no?

But I didn't ab initio make an attempt to show one is better than the other, I just made a point which by the way, is the agreed norm that one fiction especially of different genre cannot be 'greater' than another..
Can you say Hemingway the old man... Is better than vs Naipaul masque of Africa..both are literature but of different variety.
Appreciate writers and don't bother so much about ranking..you could.compare good, bad and great writers.
Achebe to my mind given his whole opus is on a higher plane to Okri. But that's is not precise science just an opinion.

5 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Nobody: 1:38pm On Apr 21, 2015

RebelChip:

Nwanne otoro gbagbuo gi dia! Otu nnei... Odika isi adiro gi mma? Nkita rachakwa gi anya dia! Lekwa otule ako nshi igwam okwu.. Nwa mba nshi dika gi... Oburu na ino mu nso kita, bottle orijin a mu ji ga ezu gi ike na isi... Akpa amu yoruba... Siri gi nsi nsi sipu fuo ebe a.... Isi odo!

Oloriibu omo yeeboe. Aye e Maa taa big guguru ni. Ooni kuure

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Nobody: 1:39pm On Apr 21, 2015

SeverusSnape:

Damn!... I feel so nostalgic right now.
I can never forget that book!..."Usman the terror of the north"...

brother I dey tells you. Some books like the bottled leopard, an African nights entertainment, without a silver spoon, the potters wheel, the concubine... Choii... Am vibrating right now under AC.

3 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by datribune: 1:39pm On Apr 21, 2015

Amos Tutuola

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by dokyOloye: 1:39pm On Apr 21, 2015

No Cyprain Ekwensi,no Elechi Amadi,no Ola Rotimi,even Chukwuemeka Ike e no dey and many others.
Who de fek is Helon Habila when compared to these guys I have mentioned?
Op,wetin U de smoke sef

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Menace2Society(m): 1:40pm On Apr 21, 2015

searching4love:

Eleeribu leleyi oo ibo loti jawa to lokun lorun? Omo ale ajekuta mamumi

How dare u talk shi.t about Chinua Achebe undecided

2 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Schematics: 1:40pm On Apr 21, 2015

Stop arguing with any ediot.

Achebe is by far in all ramifications ahead of all Nigerian writers put together and he died as number ONE in Africa. The records are there..

Buonsenso:

But I didn't ab initio make an attempt to show one is better than the other, I just made a point which by the way, is the agreed norm that one fiction especially of different genre cannot be 'greater' than another..
Can you say Hemingway the old man... Is better than vs Naipaul masque of Africa..both are literature but of different variety.
Appreciate writers and don't bother so much about ranking..you could.compare good, bad and great writers.
Achebe to my mind given his whole opus is on a higher plane to Okri. But that's is not precise science just an opinion.

1 Like

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by SeverusSnape(m): 1:40pm On Apr 21, 2015

hifaif:

You must be a joker to think Achebe tops in Africa. A novelist who only wrote 5 novels and couldn't even replicate his masterpiece. Even that Things Fall Apart is overrated. He was lucky to have published the book at the time he did. If you have read the Famished Road or Sello Duiker's Hidden Star, then you would know that TFA is overrated.

Chinua Achebe is Nigeria's greatest writer and probably Africa's, Go figure...
Do you know what it means for your book to be translated into 70 languages

.... You must be joking for calling things fall apart an overrated book.

4 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Nobody: 1:41pm On Apr 21, 2015

searching4love:

CHINUA ACHEBE IS OVERRATED AND SHOULDN'T BE ON THAT LIST. THE ONLY FAMOUS BOOK HE WROTE WAS "things fall apart" AND IT WAS A FLUKE COS HE NEVER REPEATED SUCH. HE IS AN AVERAGE WRITER WHO DOESN'T DESERVE SUCH RECOGNITION

Average writer ? Use Google.

1 Like

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by dokyOloye: 1:43pm On Apr 21, 2015

nagoma:
CYPERIAN EKWENSI

I always wonder wonder why this great Nigeria writer Ekwensi is always underrated! Ekwensi was far greater than many in that list and would normally be close behind the first or the second best in this list.
These are some of Ekwensi works, ( people of the city was my best, but I also loved Burning grass, loko town and all. Jagua Nana was my first contact with pidgin English - most entertaining) .

When Love Whispers (1948)
An African Night's Entertainment (1948)
The Boa Suitor (1949)
The Leopard's Claw (1950)
People of the City (London: Andrew Dakers, 1954)
The Drummer Boy (1960)
The Passport of Mallam Ilia (written 1948, published 1960)
Jagua Nana (1961)
Burning Grass (1961)
An African Nights Entertainment (1962)
Beautiful Feathers (novel; London: Hutchinson, 1963)
Rainmaker (collection of short stories; 1965)
Iska (London: Hutchinson, 1966)
Lokotown (collection of short stories; 1966)
Restless City and Christmas Gold (1975)
Divided We Stand: a Novel of the Nigerian Civil War (1980)
Motherless Baby (Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Company, 1980)
Jagua Nana's Daughter (1987)
Behind the Convent Wall (1987)
The Great Elephant Bird (Evans Brothers, 1990
Gone to Mecca (Heinemann Educational Books, 1991)
Jagua Nana's Daughter (1993)
Masquerade Time (children’s book; London: Chelsea House Publishing; Jaws Maui, 1994)
Cash on Delivery (2007, collection of short stories)

Chaii,passport of Mallam Ilia.
One of the finest piece of literature ever written.
Op is probably a teenager for not adding this guru to d list.

2 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by SeverusSnape(m): 1:44pm On Apr 21, 2015

RebelChip:

brother I dey tells you. Some books like the bottled leopard, an African nights entertainment, without a silver spoon, the potters wheel, the concubine... Choii... Am vibrating right now under AC.

Hei!.... You just reminded me, "without a silver spoon", When I read "tears of motherhood", I cried cry

, See "Chike and the river", That "African night entertainment" is another great piece of literary work, My eyes are misty right now. The good old days...

2 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Schematics: 1:45pm On Apr 21, 2015

Chinua Achebe: The Father of African Literature

2013 saw the sad loss of one of Africa’s most prominent authors and respected scholars: after a short illness, Chinua Achebe died at the age of 82 in Boston, USA. His death saw an outpouring of tributes from those in the arts and politics, including Nelson Mandela, Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka and hip-hop artist and actor Tariq Trotter.

Born on the 16th of November 1930 in the Igbo town of Ogidi, Anambra, Nigeria, Achebe was widely known for his novels, essays and poems. Heavily influenced by Igbo traditions, these works drew on folk tales and proverbs, and questioned Western ideas of Africa. Achebe’s most widely read book, his debut novel Things Fall Apart, was first published in 1958 and explores the clash between traditional African culture and colonialism in a fictional Nigerian village during the 1890’s. The novel is rightly held as a modern African masterpiece, while at the time causing controversy for being written in the English language. Achebe reasoned that the use was a powerful tool in the fight to regain ‘what is yours’; English being the language of colonisation.

Things Fall Apart was followed by a sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), which follows the character of Obi Okonkwo, the grandson of the protagonist in his first book. Okonkwo leaves his Nigerian village for an education in Britain, but soon struggles with the Western lifestyle and pressures of his family’s expectations.

Arrow of God is Achebe’s third novel in what is often considered as The African trilogy. Published in 1964, it takes its title from an Igbo proverb and was influenced by real events. The novel is set during the 1920’s and centres on the chief priest of an Igbo village who proudly refuses to follow the new colonial rule, leading to his imprisonment and loss of the village’s traditions.
Achebe also widely published a number of essays, poems and children’s books, with a number of the essays collected together as The Education of a British-Protected Child. While many of these works were critically acclaimed, his 1975 essay An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was less so. Reading his essay during a lecture, Achebe presented Conrad as a racist and claimed that the novel dehumanised Africans. It was a lecture that split academics, with many walking out and expressing their anger at his attack on a Western literature giant, while others applauded him for this eye-opening perspective.

During his lifetime Achebe was the recipient of a number of awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Award in 1974, the Man Booker International Prize in 2007 and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2010. Though often regarded as an obvious nominee for the Nobel Prize, Achebe never received the honour, with some believing that his attack on Conrad was the ruling factor for this lack of recognition.
After a car crash in 1990, Achebe was left paralysed, and though limited to a wheelchair, he still managed to continue within academia. Achebe was the Charles P Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in New York before taking up the position of the David and Marianne Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies in 2009, a role he held until his passing on the evening of Thursday the 21st March 2013.
Achebe leaves behind him a powerful legacy; a literary titan, who was at the forefront of African literature throughout his career and who was the author of the most widely read African novel in the 20th century. He was a man trying to define his identity as an Igbo writer, and a man who managed to teach Western Literature that there was so much more to Africa than what many believed.

By Kate Kelsall

8 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by AllNaijaBlogger(m): 1:45pm On Apr 21, 2015

searching4love:

CHINUA ACHEBE IS OVERRATED AND SHOULDN'T BE ON THAT LIST. THE ONLY FAMOUS BOOK HE WROTE WAS "things fall apart" AND IT WAS A FLUKE COS HE NEVER REPEATED SUCH. HE IS AN AVERAGE WRITER WHO DOESN'T DESERVE SUCH RECOGNITION

Jesus! Are you and the nlanders that liked ur comment Nigerians?

See ignorance. Ache be has other good works. Go and read. Ignorance is a disease

5 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by sherrylo: 1:45pm On Apr 21, 2015

Where is Elechi Amadi,Ola Rotimi?

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by uzolexis(f): 1:47pm On Apr 21, 2015

All my posts 2day is dedicated to huntila...happy birthday dear, dont worry we'll find that babe 4 u cheesy

this thread and all d reasonable comments r nostalgic,i feel like reading all those books again

1 Like

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by dokyOloye: 1:51pm On Apr 21, 2015

FrancisTony:
Chimamanda should be number one on that list if only it was arranged ordely.
All her novels are widely recognised;
1) Things around your neck.
2) Purple Hibiscus
3) Half of a yellow sun
4) Americannah

my brother look for these books and read then U will know Adichie is a learner when it comes to literary works.
Passport of Mallam Ilia by Chprain Ekwensi.
Toads for supper by I think Chukwuemeka Ike.
The God's are not to blame by Ola Rotimi and U will marvel at d creativity of these fellows.
This is d reason some of us were avid readers in our younger days find it difficult to watch these nollywood videos wt their watery content.

2 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by kendological(m): 1:52pm On Apr 21, 2015

searching4love:

CHINUA ACHEBE IS OVERRATED AND SHOULDN'T BE ON THAT LIST. THE ONLY FAMOUS BOOK HE WROTE WAS "things fall apart" AND IT WAS A FLUKE COS HE NEVER REPEATED SUCH. HE IS AN AVERAGE WRITER WHO DOESN'T DESERVE SUCH RECOGNITION

Why are you so foolish?

4 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by sinizia: 1:56pm On Apr 21, 2015

hifaif:

Exactly. A big fluke. Wole Soyinka ought to top that list. Cyprian Ekwensi was a finer writer than Achebe in my opinion. Even TM Aluko was better.

Unlike you, that thing called Searching4love is a hateful idíot that never makes sense and hates anything Igbo or Christianity. His opinion is out of hate.

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by timilehing(m): 1:57pm On Apr 21, 2015

Why is Chimamanda on thar list and Shola Rotimi is not there? She's an opportunist that uses political situation of the country to gain popularity. She's no top 50 writer of all time

1 Like

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Heromaniaa: 2:00pm On Apr 21, 2015

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Dospix(m): 2:01pm On Apr 21, 2015

searching4love:

CHINUA ACHEBE IS OVERRATED AND SHOULDN'T BE ON THAT LIST. THE ONLY FAMOUS BOOK HE WROTE WAS "things fall apart" AND IT WAS A FLUKE COS HE NEVER REPEATED SUCH. HE IS AN AVERAGE WRITER WHO DOESN'T DESERVE SUCH RECOGNITION

"If you don't like a story, go and write your own." I think Achebe had the likes of you in mind when he carved out this quote. It is quite pathetic that you are the only one who holds this view, the world does not share this view with you...infact the world has succintly made it conspicuous that Achebe is the greatest writer that has come from this continent. You and your ilks would continue to suffer from brain mirage if you keep trying to alter this lucid truth.

4 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Nobody: 2:03pm On Apr 21, 2015

IGBOSON2:
I love novels i no go lie! They posses powers to transport you to a magical world of make-believe, and help you to get lost in the moment! Nothing beats staying indoors on a wet and dreary day, and losing yourself in a captivating novel.....travelling back in time to any particular time and place of the authors choosing!

Oh, good to see there are other dreamers like me here cheesy

I know exactly what you mean...
.....and in the present....you keep searching....for that "undescribable" thing

(Time travel to those days...when I, would be meant to do stuff before mama's return....next thing I would look up from "my" couch and it is close to her return! And I would not have done any chores! Because I had been reading ! Oh the mad dash to do all before the bell ring.....and the scoldings (eyes roll) would start)....and also putting a novel between the pages of a textbook and pretending to be absorbed in Chemistry....while reading "life" cheesy

Awesome-ness.....reading

4 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by JJBROS(m): 2:03pm On Apr 21, 2015

kennygee:

Lovers of literature will agree with me.

Ola Rotimi's name should be there.

Ola Rotimi name is actually missing...........

The god's are to Blame (famous)

Our Husband has gone mad again

Ovorahme Onogbase

2 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by dokyOloye: 2:03pm On Apr 21, 2015

drAvundaa:
where is Elechi Amadi, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ola Rotimi, Ifeanyi Aniebo, . . .u need to know their quality before u repeat d list

Chukwuemeka Ike of d toads for supper fame nko?
Op is still a learner.

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by mek2002(m): 2:07pm On Apr 21, 2015

What about Chukwuemeka Ike?

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Nobody: 2:07pm On Apr 21, 2015

JJBROS:

Ola Rotimi name is actually missing...........

The god's are to Blame (famous)

Our Husband has gone mad again

Ovorahme Onogbase

Ovonramwen Nogbaisi.

1 Like

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by queensmith: 2:07pm On Apr 21, 2015

sholay2011:
I love me some Buchi Emecheta.

OP...hope you know WRITING spans across genres: Prose, Drama & Poetry?

If so, Wole Soyinka easily tops them all.

Others are great prosaists from what I can infer.

i will say the same but I wasnt sure if that was me being bias since Im yoruba.

Wole Soyinka IMO deserves the topspot. He's not a Nobel Prize winner for having bushy hair!

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by Rossikk(m): 2:08pm On Apr 21, 2015

searching4love:

CHINUA ACHEBE IS OVERRATED AND SHOULDN'T BE ON THAT LIST. THE ONLY FAMOUS BOOK HE WROTE WAS "things fall apart" AND IT WAS A FLUKE COS HE NEVER REPEATED SUCH. HE IS AN AVERAGE WRITER WHO DOESN'T DESERVE SUCH RECOGNITION

How many ya papa don write?

3 Likes

Re: Top 10 Nigerian Writers Of All Time. by dokyOloye: 2:08pm On Apr 21, 2015

anomsodi:
Wot of chukwuemeka ike 'the bottle leopard '

Chaiii,that novel.
Children of nowadays are sure missing a lot.

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