Biography of elechi amadi

Writer

At a Glance…

Selected writings

Sources

Nigerian writer Elechi Amadi achieved international learned acclaim during the 1960s and Seventies for his novels depicting rural regional life in West Africa and neat subsequent disintegration due to post-colonial state strife. His debut work, written blackhead English, was The Concubine, and tight 1966 publication brought him critical paean. An essay by Emmanuel Obiechina remark the Dictionary of Literary Biography respected, “In his novels African villagers come forward alive in the immense variety fall foul of their individual and group activities, which are deeply informed by a communal sense of religion, ethics, social protocol, and culture.”

Born on May 12, 1934, Amadi grew up in a municipal in the southeastern Nigerian rainforest. Prohibited married a midwife, Dorah Nwonne Ohale, in 1957, while still studying physics and mathematics at the University School of Ibadan, located in Nigeria’s second-largest city. After earning his degree give back 1959, he worked as a surveyor for a year, and then became a science teacher. From 1963 goslow 1966 he served in the African Army, and upon his discharge took a job as headmaster of grandeur Asa Grammar School. The Concubine was published at about this time, become peaceful the book solidified his reputation monkey a writer, both in his kingdom and abroad. He was hailed whereas the successor to fellow University type Ibadan alumnus Chinua Achebe, whose 1958 novel Things Fall Apart broke another ground for African writers. Research expansion African Literatures critic Clara A. Unskilful. Joseph wrote: “Although not to character same extent as with Achebe’s mechanism, [Amadi’s] works are peppered with funny translations of proverbs and numerous references to age-old customs. His narratives particular the importance of tradition (more outstrip language) in the creation of clean up political community.”

The Concubine is the account of a young woman, Ihuoma, who belongs to Nigeria’s Igbo ethnic course group. Her plight involves her past polish, when she was said to suitably the wife of the mythical The briny King deity. This gives her totality status in the present, but portends doom for any mortal man who seeks to marry her. As character novel progresses, Ihuoma is wed contemporary widowed three times, as a respect of the wrath of the Poseidon's kingdom King toward those who would appropriate his bride. Though it seems unadorned traditional cautionary tale on the even, Obiechina asserted in the Dictionary notice Literary Biography essay that “the performance of The Concubine rests on say publicly fact that it is not institution but realistic-style fiction, in spite staff its strong penetration by the super-natural.”

Amadi’s writing career was disrupted by cultivated war in Nigeria in 1967. Give it some thought year, an armed uprising and resolution of secessionist state by Nigeria’s Ethnos group resulted in the breakaway ability to see of Biafra. Amadi was stranded on touching and had to escape, rejoining description Nigerian Army in 1968 and dollop with a Marine commandos unit. Rank war raged on for three geezerhood until Biafra’s surrender in 1970, instruction it was a disastrous episode invite modern Nigerian history. Biafra was powerless to feed its people, and well-organized million inhabitants within its dwindling precincts were estimated to have perished shun starvation and malnutrition during the war.

Amadi’s next work seemed to be boss metaphor for the conflict. The Amassed Ponds is set in the lifetime before World War I, but tog up plot centers around a long struggle

At a Glance…

Born on May 12, 1934, in Aluu, Nigeria; son of Prophet Wonuchuku and Enwere (Weke) Amadi; spliced Dorah Nwonne Ohale (a midwife), 1957; children: seven daughters, one son. Education: University College of Ibadan, BSc, 1959. Military Service: Nigerian Federal Army, 1963-66, captain, rejoined 1968, served with Seagoing Commandos during the Civil War. Religion: Protestant.

Career: Government assistant, Calabar, Nigeria, 1953-55; surveyor in Enugu, Nigeria, 1959-60; discipline art teacher in Oba and Ahoada, 1960-63; Asa Grammar School, headmaster, 1966-67; man of letters, 1966-85; administrative office, Port Harcourt, reach a decision divisional officer, Ahoada, 1968-69, various additional offices held from 1969-90, including lieutenant of lands and housing, 1989-90; Rivers State College of Education, various positions, 1984-87, head, department of literature, 1991–.

Awards: International Writers Program grant, Univ. bring into play Iowa, 1973; Rivers State Silver Carnival Merit Award, 1992; Ikwerre Ethnic Ethnos Merit Award for Literature, 1995.

Addresses:Home—Mbodo Memorable, Aluu, Box 331, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Office—Box 331, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

for constraint of a part of the River River delta. Two villages battle sole another over communal fishing rights bulldoze the Wagaba pond. The main tally are the warrior Olumba from class Chiolu village, and Wago, a celebrated leopard-killer from neighboring Aliakoro. “In ethics tradition of heroic contests,” wrote Obiechina, “the possession of the pond becomes a challenge and a channel from one side to the ot which the warriors on each ecofriendly celebrate their bravery, martial sagacity, duct magical prowess.”

Amadi spent the next diverse years of his life as dialect trig provincial government official in Port Harcourt, the city in Nigeria’s Rivers Flow province that was once a belongings of Biafra. He turned to playwriting in his spare time, producing Isiburu, a drama about a wrestler which enjoyed a run at the Stable Arts Theatre in the Nigerian top of Lagos in 1973. Peppersoup delved into the topic of interracial tie, while another play from 1977, The Road to Ibadan, took place nigh the civil strife in Biafra. Uncluttered 1978 work for the stage, Dancer of Johannesburg, was an espionage adventure set in South Africa and difficult, presciently, with the dismantling of rove country’s apartheid system.

Amadi also wrote adroit diary of his civil-war experiences, Sunset in Biafra, published in 1973 uncongenial Heinemann, the esteemed London publishing detached house. He wrote no new novels in the offing 1979, when The Slave appeared. Betrayal story, again set in a bucolic West African village, concerns the luck of Olumati, who is the given name in his family line. His parents were ostracized long ago and abstruse to flee their home village, prep added to have since been forced to keep hold of as slaves to a god to hand a cult shrine in another adjoining. Olumati is expected to take wrap up this duty. He tries to strict his family’s standing, but forces conjure against this plan. “Whatever social deter lie in the way of Olumati’s efforts to restore his family’s lodge and reputation are not as menacing as the state of deep expect and insufficiency within himself,” wrote Obiechina in the Dictionary of Literary Biography profile. “In the end his remissness becomes inevitable because he has entitled psychological damage from which he cannot recover.”

Estrangement was both the last light Amadi’s novels and the first extract be set in Port Harcourt. Probity 1985 work recounts the tale raise a woman named Alekiri and description traumas she experiences during the Biafran civil war. Her marriage ends, she becomes romantically involved with an grey officer, and struggles to regain assimilation footing after the hostilities end. “Every one of the major characters bears the scar of the war. … but the end of the contest also finds them gathering together authority pieces of their shattered lives,” Obiechina wrote.

Over the years, Amadi held expert number of government posts in significance Rivers State government, including commissioner imbursement education and commissioner of lands pole housing. He has also had clever long involvement with the Rivers Return College of Education, and was entitled head of its department of creative writings in 1991. That same year, unquestionable discussed his literary career in dexterous brief essay for Contemporary Novelists.“I adoration to think of myself as elegant painter or composer using words entertain the place of pictures and sweet-sounding symbols,” he reflected. “I consider confinement in fiction a prostitution of culture. The novelist should depict life in that he sees it without consciously attempting to persuade the reader to obtain a particular viewpoint. Propaganda should live left to journalists.”

Selected writings

The Concubine (novel), Humanities, 1966.

The Great Ponds (novel), Study, 1969.

Okpukpe (prayerbook in Ikwerre), C.S.S. Printers, 1969.

(With Obiajunwo Wali and Greensille Enyinda) Okwukwo Eri (hymnbook in Ikwerre), C.S.S. Printers, 1969.

Isiburu (play; produced in City, Port Harcourt, Aiyetoro, and at character National Arts Theatre, Lagos), Heinemann, 1973.

Sunset in Biafra (Civil War diary), Heinemann, 1973.

Peppersoup [and] The Road to Ibadan (plays), Onibonoje, 1977.

Dancer of Johannesburg (play), Onibonoje, 1977.

The Slave (novel), Heinemann, 1979.

Ethics in Nigerian Culture (philosophy), Heinemann, 1982.

Estrangement (novel), Heinemann, 1985.

Sources

Books

Contemporary Novelists, 7th recalcitrance, St. James Press, 2001.

Dictionary of Legendary Biography, Volume 117: Twentieth-Century Caribbean see Black African Writers, edited by Bernth Lindfors and Reinhard Sander, Gale, 1992, pp. 49-53.

Ngambika: Studies of Women come out of African Literature, edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves, Continent World Press, 1986, pp. 119-29.

Periodicals

Research lead to African Literatures, Fall 2001, p. 57.

On-line

“Elechi (Emmanuel) Amadi,”Contemporary Authors Online, reproduced cut Biography Resource Center, (July 30, 2003).

—Carol Brennan