Ikeogu Oke

Ikeogu Ole (23 May 1967 – 24 November 2018) was a Nigerian author, journalist and award-winning poet. In 2017, he won the Nigeria Prize for Literature for his first collection of poetry The Heresiad. Quotes Give all you have to what you do and love it with all your heart. We are what we are because of others With whom the heavens steer our lives like rudders. And may the heavens gift your life a rudder Like this brother from another mother. Modern Nigerian literary works are very successful in all the genres, depending on our parameter for measuring success. If it is critical global acclaim, for instance, it has won it through the works of writers like Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Helon Habila and Chika Unigwe (in fiction), Wole Soyinka, J. P. Clark, Ola Rotimi and Femi Osofisan (in drama), and Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo and Niyi Osundare (in poetry). The unique characteristic of Nigerian and African story telling is largely related to its tendency to reflect what Achebe calls “applied art” as opposed to “pure art” in his essay “The Novelist as a Teacher”. By this is meant art, literature in this case, applied to solving problems of a social, political or other nature. In fact, we Africans seem to me to have a natural disinclination to doing things for their own sake, assuming it is possible do anything for its own sake. He talks about the unique characteristics of Nigerian African storytelling Nigeria is regarded as one of the literary giants within Africa and the works of its writers have been very impactful across the continent since Amos Tutuola published The Palm-wine Drinkard in 1954 and Achebe followed with what might me described as the extraordinary achievement of Things Fall Apart in 1958. And we must not forget that Tutuola’s book, which I consider a work of raw genius, was a unique work in its own way, signalling a special contribution to African, in fact world, literature with its type of special English, something reminiscent of what Mark Twain does with English in Huckleberry Finn but different in the sense that it seemed more unconscious, more natural, than invented, unlike Twain’s, a contrast between the automatic expression of genius and its expression as craft. talks about how literature is received in Africa There are attitudinal problems: Many writers engage in writing as a hustle rather than a vocation. This comes with the expectation of short-term material success and quick accolades based on low-quality writings. And frustration sets in when those expectations are not met, as they hardly are in reality. And so you have a lot of angry writers in the country, especially among the younger generation, impudent literary Absaloms who act as if writers of the older generations are standing in their way to literary success or fame, and as if they would not mind committing literary parricide against them and enthrone themselves on the country’s literary establishment. he talks about challenges faced by Nigerian writers External links Category:1967 births Category:2018 deaths Category:Nigerian writers Category:Poets from Nigeria