Tanure Ojaide

Tanure Ojaide (born 29 April 1948) is a Nigerian poet, novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and professor. Quotes It is an exhilarating experience to be recognised by your own country and be among the best and brightest. I feel happy and lucky to have won the award. It is a humbling experience, which imposes some responsibilities on one, too. If you are nurtured by your country and recognised with its highest award, you have to give your very best to the country. To whom much is given, much is expected. The saying can’t be truer than for the winner of the Nigerian National Order of Merit. Tanure Ojaide speaking on receiving the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) As an African, I must take history seriously. If your people’s lives have been disrupted by others who not only enslaved but also colonized and still exploit them, you must struggle to make history redeem itself. I am fascinated by memory of the past and what it has given rise to today, and how the future is being fashioned by our current actions. The choice of nine movements is cultural. Among the Urhobo, nine is a special number that features in rituals to signify unending. Here, history is not what Fukuyama conceives as ending, but an unending phenomenon. Among the nine movements are personal, national, international, and human aspects of history. Ojaide speaking on the importance of history and memory in African literature It is a very long way from Ibada Village (which no longer exists) to Charlotte, North Carolina. I was not even born there, but at Igberhe Village, so-named after the plantain plants that sustained the people. My two hands are both of Okpara, the sub-clan of Agbon. It's said that Okpara is slippery in the dry season, if you take the town for granted! "A Self-Portrait by Tanure Ojaide, an Urhobo Poet and Writer", Waado.org I was born and raised in my maternal side; hence I begin from my mother's village. I am an Okurunoh man (really Enemarho Village) but I am Ibada-born. References External links Category:Poets from Nigeria Category:Academics from Nigeria External links Category:1948 births Category:Living people