Michael Joseph Chukwudalu Echeruo (born March 14, 1937) is a Nigerian academic, professor and literary critic from Umunumo, Ehime-Mbano LGA, Imo State. He is the William Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the English Department at Syracuse University since 1990.
Echeruo was educated at the University College, Ibadan [1] (now the University of Ibadan) from 1955 to 1960 and was contemporaries with a few notable writers and poets from the college, such as Christopher Okigbo. He earned his Master's and Ph D degrees from Cornell University, [2] Ithaca, New York in 1963 and 1965 respectively. There he was a member of the Telluride House. [3] One of the most versatile of African critics, he has published in English Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, in the modern English novel. Echeruo was primarily notable as a critic of western writers on Africa, as he viewed himself and his contemporaries as writers fighting for an African viewpoint instead of a western viewpoint on the continent. He is best known in poetry for his collection of poems, Mortality (1968); [4] in cultural history for his pioneering study of Victorian Lagos and in lexicography for his Dictionary of the Igbo Language (Yale 1998). He is currently William Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the English Department of Syracuse University. [5] He serves currently as a member of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) Committee of the New variourum Shakespeare. [6]
Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with Things Fall Apart, his No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the so-called "African Trilogy"; later novels include A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). He is often referred to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.
Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was a Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the 20th century.
Chief Daniel Olorunfẹmi Fágúnwà MBE, popularly known as D. O. Fágúnwà, was a Nigerian author of Yorùbá heritage who pioneered the Yorùbá language novel.
Adaora Lily Ulasi(listen) was a Nigerian journalist and novelist. She is said to have been the first West African woman to earn a degree in journalism. As a journalist, she has worked for the BBC and Voice of America. As a novelist she wrote detective fiction in English, "adapting the genre of the crime thriller to an Igbo or Yoruba context".
Christopher Uchefuna Okeke, also known as Uche Okeke, was an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was an art and aesthetic theorist, seminal to Nigerian modernism.
Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike OFR, NNOM was a Nigerian monarch, academic and writer known for a mixture of lampoon, humor and satire. He owed a little bit of his style to his Igbo cultural upbringing. He studied history, English and Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan and earned a master's degree at Stanford University. Among many of the first generation of Nigerian writers, he was popular as the author of Expo '77, a critical look at academic examination abuses in West Africa. Ike was a former registrar of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
Francis Abiola Irele was a Nigerian academic best known as the doyen of Africanist literary scholars worldwide. He was Provost at Kwara State University, founded in 2009 in Ilorin, Nigeria. Before moving back to Nigeria, Irele was Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.
Tanure Ojaide is a Nigerian poet and academic. As a writer, he is noted for his unique stylistic vision and for his intense criticism of imperialism, religion, and other issues. He is regarded as a socio-political and an ecocentric poet. He won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa with his collection Songs of Myself: A Quartet (2017).
Pius Okigbo was an eminent Nigerian economist from Ojoto village, the present headquarters of Idemili South Local Government Area in Anambra State; he was the older brother of the poet Christopher Okigbo. Receiving his secondary schooling at Christ the King College, Onitsha, Pius passed his Cambridge School Certificate examination in Grade one in December 1940 with an exemption from the University of London matriculation. In 1941, he admitted into the prestigious Yaba Higher College, Lagos, for a diploma course in arts (1941–1942). Due to conversion of Yaba College into a military base for the Royal West African Force during World War II, in 1942 he was transferred to the Achimota College in Accra, Gold Coast, where he completed his studies in Latin, Greek, history, English language, and literature with a diploma certificate in 1943.
Adiele Eberechukwu Afigbo was a Nigerian historian known for the history and historiography of Africa, more particularly Igbo history and the history of Southeastern Nigeria. Themes emphasised include pre-colonial and colonial history, inter-group relations, the Aro and the slave trade, the art and science of history in Africa, and nation-building.
Toyin Omoyeni Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. Falola is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and has served as the president of the African Studies Association. He is currently the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.
Government College Umuahia, or GCU, is an independent secondary school for boys located on Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road in Umuahia, Nigeria.
Yaba Higher College was founded in 1932 in Yaba, now a suburb of Lagos in Nigeria to provide tertiary education to Africans, mostly in vocational subjects and teaching. The college staff were transferred to start the University of Ibadan in 1948 and the college premises were used for the new Yaba College of Technology.
Michael Abiola Omolewa is a Nigerian diplomat, scholar, education historian, and civil servant. From September 2003 to October 2005, he served as the 32nd president of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). While president, Omolewa led UNESCO to adopt the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data and the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. From January 2000 to August 2009, Omolewa served as permanent delegate and ambassador of Nigeria to UNESCO. At University of Lagos, on Wednesday 6 February 2019, Omolewa delivered the 5th Enoch Adeboye Annual Birthday Public Lecture; titled: Peace: The Global Quest.
Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna was a Nigerian army major and high jumper. He was the first Black African to win a gold medal at an international sports event when he won at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. His winning mark and personal best of 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) was a game record and a British Empire record at the time.
Obioma Paul Iwuanyanwu known mononymously as Obiwu, is a Nigerian-American writer and professor. He is a survivor of the Igbo genocide in Nigeria (1966–1970), and teaches World Literature and Critical Theory in the Humanities Department at Central State University.
The Mbari Club was a centre for cultural activity by African writers, artists and musicians that was founded in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1961 by Ulli Beier, with the involvement of a group of young writers including Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. Mbari, an Igbo concept related to "creation", was suggested as the name by Achebe. Among other Mbari members were Christopher Okigbo, J. P. Clark and South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele, Frances Ademola, Demas Nwoko, Mabel Segun, Uche Okeke, Arthur Nortje and Bruce Onobrakpeya.
Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo is a Nigerian author and educator, whose published work includes novels, poetry, short stories, books for children, essays and journalism. She is the winner of several awards in Nigeria, including the Nigeria Prize for Literature.
The Institute of African Studies at University of Nigeria, Nsukka is a graduate research institution of African, peace and conflict resolution studies. It is an interdisciplinary center with previous directors of the institute coming from the fields of English, Fine Arts and History.