Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921 - November 4, 2007), 1 of the expansive old work force of African fiction-and one of the few who made the passage from Onitsha-market-pamphlet-fiction writers to one with at least something of an international reputation-has passed away. So The Literary Barroom announced the decease of this African literary icon who died Lord'S Day 4th of November in Enugu at the age of 86. dark drop again in the Nigerian literary celestial sphere .. when veteran soldier novelist, druggist and public commentator, Prostitute Ekwensi passed on. He was 86 old age old. So did another Lagos-based paper The Defender denote this sad event.
The writer of the popular Jagua Nana series of novels as reported died at the Niger River Foundation in Enugu where he underwent an operation for an unrevealed ailment. It was not clear if he died during or after the operation.
He is believed to be the writer of the earlier published fiction on societal life in the Lagos City with his down-to-earth style of authorship and his fecund output, with over 20 novels to his credit. Ekwensi thus became famed as the ascendant of the metropolis novel, which stressed ample verbal description of the venue with a largely episodic style drawn perhaps from his pamphleteering.
For Ekwensi's widow, Chinwe, the decease of her hubby is a daze she may have got to dwell with the remainder of her life. Wearing dark spectacles and sitting at a corner in the broad sitting room, she narrated how she had driven her late hubby the former hebdomad to the Niger River Foundation Hospital for a bank check up no knowing that he was going to be admitted. Although she could not confirm, whether her hubby underwent a surgery at the hospital, she stated however that, his wellness kept deteriorating by the day.
Mrs. Ekwensi, who is in her late 60's added that she cut short her see overseas after disbursement two hebdomads to wing him from Lagos back to Enugu, adding that in the last 1 month, they had regularly visited the hospital. "Since we left Lagos, we have got not rested. It is from one thing to another ...", she said.
Mrs. Ekwensi, who reeled in waistline hurting as she told her story, disclosed that the striving increased during their long years at the hospital, while attending to her husband. "The infirmary bench became my bed," she grimaced. adding that her husband's status remained critical until his death. The deceased's eldest son, Saint George who flew in from the U.S. when he learnt about his father's ailment, have begun audiences with dealings and noteworthy natives of Anambra State on entombment plans.
Speaking with the Daily Sun, the novelist's son, Ike, confirmed the household meeting, but noted that his father's entombment would not be determined by household members only, considering his outstanding parts to national development.
Ekwensi was owed for an awarding in Lagos, on November 16. He had left Lagos in good spirit a calendar month ago with the hope of picking the awarding later not knowing that he would not do it, a relation, said at the Ekwensi's place on 141, Ojuelegba Road, Lagos.
Following the decease of this celebrated novelist and public commentator, the Anambra State Governor, Mr. Simon Peter Obi, vertex Igbo socio-cultural organization, past and present governors, curates of government, authors and All Progressive Thousand Alliance have got expressed daze over his demise.
They described Ekwensi's decease as a great loss to Federal Republic Of Nigeria and the full literary world. Factional President-General of Ohanaeze, Dozie Ikedife, said a great Igbo boy had departed, stressing that he left enviable bequests that would endure for coevals to come. "It is a pity. He is one of the top writers of our time. He have been around for sometime....Nigerians and the full literary human race will definitely lose him. .," he said. Ikedife urged the household to bear the loss with fortitude, trusting in Supreme Being and believing that he had contributed his best to authorship and societal engineering.
The governor said Ekwensi's decease have created a spread in the state and in the literary human race and made self-assurances that the state authorities would fully take part in the entombment arrangements. Being a traditional head and titleholder, Ekwensi's household will first ran into before officially communicating the news of his passing play to the government.
In his tribute, the National President of the All Progressives Thousand Alliance Head Victor Umeh said Ekwensi's decease have got robbed Nigeria, of one of the top literary heads to have passed through the land. He observed that his plant had contributed immensely to the development of literature in Nigeria, adding that he would be greatly missed by all Nigerians.
Former Health Minister, Professor A.B.C Nwosu recalling that the late literary icon who had started life as a pharmacist, played a important function in the obliteration of the then dreaded guinea worm disease in old Anambra state as president of the state Health Management Board at the clip when he (Nwosu) was Commissioner for Health said he would happen it hard to mention to Ekwensi in the past tense, having go used to his resourcefulness as both a author and administrator.
"It is a awful blow. He gave me the motto 'Get quit of guinea worm' when he was president Anambra State Health Management Board and I was Commissioner for Health under the late Emeka Omeruah. We traversed the whole of Abakaliki country in the pursuit to kick out guinea worm. He helped me acquire finances from Japanese Islands to finance the project. We both received former American President Jimmy Carter. A mulct adult male with a mulct mind. ." Nwosu added.
Former Governor of Old Anambra State, Head Christian Onoh also described Ekwensi's death as a large blow to the literary world. Onoh, among the first set of people that paid a understanding visit to the Hill position Crescent, Independence layout, Enugu abode of the late fecund writer, said that, the news came to him with ill-mannered shock, expressing discouragement that Ekwensi could decease at a clip when according to him, " we necessitate him around to reform our education".
Clad in achromatic lace, the older statesman, said he was however consoled by the fact that the late Ekwensi never wasted his clip on earth, adding that his parts to the literary human race would dwell forever. He said that, Ekwensi who authored many literary books, lived and died for authorship and drawn-out his understandings to the Nigerian literary human race as well as the full South East.
The Curate of Information, Mister Toilet Odey described the late "Ekwensi as a great subscriber to the integrity of Federal Soldier Republic Of Nigeria and the development of literary instruction in the country".
The message reads: "the Federal Government received the news of the sudden decease of a outstanding citizen of your state and a reputable literary icon of this country, Head Prostitute Ekwensi, with sadness. "I am particularly touched by his decease because of his having served as a staff of my ministry where he rose to go a Director".
Reacting to the decease of the novelist, National President, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Dr. Wale Okediran, said, "his death, though at a mature age, marked the end of a tradition of narrative telling. As a author of popular fiction, pod was a natural narrator whose plant were both accessible and entertaining."
Okediran, who described the late Ekwensi as his instructor in the popular literature genre, said a construction in the projected Ana small town in Capital Of Nigeria would be named after him as portion of ANA's program to immortalise him, adding that Ana would join forces with the Nigerian arm of PEN, a planetary association of writers, to do available, a docudrama made on Ekwensi to all Nigerians.
A former Ana President Professor Obafemi, on his part, said "Ekwensi's loss is the loss of a cardinal designer of modern Nigerian literature and the first to carve a national fictional character for Nigerian fiction. He was one of those who erected the canon and pillars of popular fiction in Nigeria. His decease have taken away an hereditary voice in the Nigerian originative cosmos."
Professor Olu Obafemi described the late author as a cardinal figure in the constitution of what is now known as Nigerian literature. According to Obafemi, Ekwensi would forever be remembered as one of the oldest authors of the English look who kept and gave national fictional character to Nigerian literature. "Ekwensi's death" he said " is a major want to Nigerian literature. He was one of the major designers of modern Nigerian literature, who, as early as in the 1950s and 1960s, began to compose about issues and events beyond his ethnical background.
Speaking on the decease of the novelist in Lagos, the helper General Secretary of ANA, Mister Hyacinth Obunseh, described Ekwensi's decease as unfortunate. Obunseh said that the literary community and indeed the human race would lose him especially, his curious style of writing. "Ekwensi's ingenious and descriptive powerfulness will be greatly missed," Obunseh said.. He, however, regretted that the late literary giant did not dwell long adequate to finish his autobiography.
A writer, Fred Uzo, expressed the hope that Federal Republic Of Nigeria would "give him the honor that is owed to a scholar, a author and a humanistic of his stature.".
Earlier this year, Ekwensi released Cash on Delivery, a aggregation of short stories, which turned out to be his last book. When he turned 86 last year, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Lagos State chapter and the Committee for Relevant Humanistic Discipline (CORA), feted him.
Ekwensi was famed as the forefather of the metropolis novel. He is believed to be the writer of the earlier published fiction on societal life in the Lagos Metropolis. The complete novelist is singular for his down-to-earth style of authorship and his fecund output, with over 20 novels to his credit.
Told of the passing play on of Ekwensi, poet and past president of ANA, Odia Ofeimu, was "shocked beyond words" to notice immediately.To the newly elected Lagos State Ana chairman, Mr. Chike Ofili, it was an formidable piece of information. He too withheld his remarks till later. When news of the decease broke out Nigerian writers were rounding off their annual convention held in Owerri, International Maritime Organization State.
Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi was born at Minna in Northern Federal Republic Of Nigeria on September 26, 1921 to Ogbuefi Saint David Duaka and Uso Agnes Ekwensi. He later lived in Onitsha in the Eastern area.. Helium was educated at Government School, Jos, Government College, Ibadan; Higher College, Yaba in Lagos, Achimota College, Ghana, in lbadan University where he earned his B.A
He studied forestry and worked for two old age as a forestry officer. He also taught scientific discipline and worked for Radio Federal Republic Of Nigeria before entering the Lagos School of Pharmacy which led him on to the University of Greater London where he continued his surveys at the Chelsea School of Pharmacy It was during this time period that he wrote his earlier fiction Ikolo the Wrestler and Other Tales and When Love Whispers both of which were published in 1947. He also participated in an international authorship programme in. University of Iowa, USA.
He lectured in pharmaceutics at Lagos and was employed as a druggist by the Nigerian Checkup Corporation. After advantageous response of his early writing, Ekwensi joined the Nigerian Ministry for Information and rose to becoming the manager of information by the clip of the first military coup d'etat in 1966. The continuing perturbations in the Western and Northern parts in the summertime of 1966, may have got led Ekwensi to give up his place and relocate his household at Enugu. There he became president of the Agency for External Promotion in Biafra and an advisor to the caput of state, Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu.
Reputed to be the dean of Nigeria's modern literature, Ekwensi began his authorship calling as a pamphleteer a fact which is clearly reflected in the episodic nature of his novels. This inclination is well illustrated by People of the City (1954), in which Ekwensi gave a vivacious portrait of life in a Occident African city. It was the first major novel to be published by a Nigerian. Two novelettes for children followed in 1960; both The Drummer Male Child and The Pass of Mallam Ilia which were exercisings in blending traditional subjects with undisguised romanticism.
Ekwensi's most widely read novel, Jagua Nana,which appeared in 1961.returned to the venue of People of the City but boasted a much more than cohesive secret plan centered on the fictional character of Jagua, a concubine who had a love for the expensive. Even her name was a corruptness of the expensive English automobile. Her life personalized the struggle between the old traditional and modern urban Africa. Ekwensi published a subsequence in 1987 titled Jagua Nana's Daughter. Ekwensi stressed verbal description of the venue and his episodic style was particularly well suited to the short story.
Burning Grass (1961) is basically a aggregation of sketches about a Fulah household through which Ekwensi gives penetration into the life of this pastorale people. Ekwensi based the novel and the fictional characters on a existent household with whom he had previously live. Between 1961 and 1966 Ekwensi published at least one major work every year. The most of import were, Beautiful Feathers (1963) and Iska (1966), and two aggregations of short stories, Rainmaker (1965) and Lokotown (1966). Ekwensi continued to print beyond the 1960s, with the novel Divided We Stand (1980) in which he lampooned the Nigerian civil war, the novelette Motherless Baby (1980), and The Fidgety City and Christmas Gold (1975), Behind the Convent Wall (1987), and Gone to Mecca (1991). His work, Divided We Stand (1980), , is slated for treatment by literary experts in a conference on 40 old age after the civil war.
Ekwensi also published a figure plant for children. Under the name C. O. D. Ekwensi, he released Ikolo the Wrestler and Other Ibo Tales (1947) and The Leopard's Claw (1950). In the 1960s, he wrote An African Night's Entertainment (1962), The Great Elephant-Bird (1965), and Trouble in Form Six (1966). Ekwensi's future plant for children include Coal Camp Male Child (1971), Samankwe in the Strange Forest (1973), Samankwe and the Highway Robbers (1975), Masquerade Time! (1992), and King Forever! (1992). In acknowledgment of his accomplishments as a writer, Ekwensi was awarded the Dekagram Dag Hammarskjold International Prize for Literary Merit in 1969.
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