Elechi Amadi

Elechi Amadi (12 May 1934 – 29 June 2016) was a Nigerian author and soldier. He was a former member of the Nigerian Armed Forces. He was an author of plays and novels that are generally about African village life, customs, beliefs, and religious practices prior to contact with the Western world. Quotes Literature is a dynamic thing. It moves with time. It is all about human beings. There is no way a writer cannot write against the background of the culture he knows which is where he is living. So that is what is happening, literature is alive and still reflecting the society. Literature is a reflection of life. It is a vehicle of culture and history. By that I mean if you go through the novels of a people at any age, you will be able to get a mine of information on the way they lived, their world view, their songs, and dances, their dressing patterns and even the geography of the area. The novelist is primarily an entertainer. In the course of telling his story, he has an aesthetic input. This is what the reader enjoys. The novelist is a story teller with an eye on the aesthetic value of language. And he is faithful to the background against which he is telling the story. But he is not a teacher. The moment he sets out to teach consciously, he becomes a propagandist. It is dishonest for a writer to sandwich a particular opinion in a good story. If you want to teach, you must be an expert in what you want to teach otherwise, you are a quack. I said this in my article, “The Problem of Commitment in Literature”. At best, a novelist can teach literature. But if he wants to teach Economics or Government, he is now a quack. For him to assume that an idea he holds is the correct one for the society is bullshit as the Americans would say. The African Writer is not a Teacher – An Interview with Elechi Amadi by Nnawuihe Fidelis Echendu, December 4, 2024. The Concubine (1966) It was a fact that if Amadioha has insisted on taking a man’s life, no medicine man could do anything about it...” Page 9 What hurts one man may benefit another” and “a diseased village is a good village to a medicine man” Page 83-84. One thing is clear: I shall marry Ihuoma. She is a human being, and if marrying a woman like her is a fatal mistake, I am prepared to make it. If I am her husband for a day before my death my soul will go singing happily to the spirit world. There also I shall be prepared to dare the wrath of four hundred Sea Kings for her sake. Ihuoma is the sea-king’s main interest and her male admires are victims of circumstance and of their own misdeeds” Page 29. No one wanted to betray his admiration. There was silence for a time. Page 119. He reconciles himself to these forces and treats them with reverence and dignity. He believes that his every action is guided and directed by spirits” Page 127. There are few women like Ihuoma in the world... It is death to marry them and they leave behind a harrowing string of dead husbands. They are usually beautiful, very beautiful but dogged by their invisible husbands of the spirit world. With some spirits marriage is possible if an expert on sorcery is consulted. With the sea-king it is impossible. He is too powerful to be fettered and when he is on the offensive he is absolutely relentless. He unleashes all the powers at his command and they are fatal” Page 196. Quotes about Him Of all the writers I have known in Nigeria, when you use the word ‘genuine man,’ it fitted Elechi Amadi more than virtually any other one I can remember. I mean, it was not only what he said in public; what he said in private always agreed with what he said in public. He was a man of genuine integrity. If that is all we need to learn from him, I think it is a great thing. Let us celebrate him Amadi started writing books to tell people about their own culture; he has already provided his own send-off. He cannot be forgotten. Among the writers we know in African literature, Elechi Amadi has a very special place. There’s a story I want all of us not to forget. On such occasion, it’s important we don’t allow our mourning to drown out some of these important facts. You have this story, which tells us about how the gods intervened in the lives of various communities and people were dying (The Great Ponds) As a member of ANA, he made sure he was always present wherever ANA was holding its meetings. Very few people had that kind of commitment to ANA. I can talk about it because I went round all those older writers in Nigeria, especially Elechi Amadi, Cyprian Ekwensi and Ken Saro-Wiwa. If they were not always around, we did not look like an association; they made us look like an association. And therefore, his not being here with us this very moment really has no significance beyond the fact that he will always be with us; he cannot escape us, and properly speaking, he cannot no longer escape us because he is part of the very life we are all going to be living from generation to generation There’s so much more that we need to do in order not to forget a great man, who has put greatness into our lives in terms of the works he has done. It is a sad occasion. I mean, we are obliged to mourn because of what we feel about him. But I want to say that at the age he died, this is an occasion for genuine celebration. A man, who lasted that long and affected so many lives, deserves to be properly celebrated. I mean, tears are in order, but celebration is also quite in order Amadi is everything for everybody. There were things he will never do; he loved his simple life; he was always cheerful; he’s immortal. He has left so much for us. We have to learn from him he ascended and transcended beyond Aluu. He touched everybody in terms of knowledge and experience. Despite the challenges he faced, he never gave up hope. As Commissioner for Housing, he never acquired property in the GRA And there is something many people do not know. Elechi Amadi was the Administrator of Rivers State; he once served as Acting Governor of Rivers State during the time of Diette-Spiff. So, by every implication, we are burying a former governor of Rivers State. And yet he never indulged in primitive acquisition of wealth As chairman of the scholarship board, he sent most of our young people abroad to study. He cannot be confined to any particular area because he served in many ways in ANA and other cultural bodies like Ogbaku Ikwerre. So, to Aluu people, where he comes from, they will miss him greatly because he was a traditional man. There was no cultural or wrestling match in Aluu that he did not attend. Of course, you know that his writing tilted towards all these cultural things; that is why they are special. He was a traditional man, an academic, selfless, honest and fearless; he’s somebody we will continue to miss The tears, the celebration that trailed Elechi Amadi’s final passage,Anote Ajeluorou,11 December 2016 External links Category:Novelists from Nigeria Category:Soldiers Category:1934 births Category:2016 deaths