Rising profile of Nigerian literature

By Chux Ohai

Daily Independent, Lagos

All over the world, the sustenance of literary activity and programmes within any society depends a lot on the collective decision of a few writers and well-meaning individuals to keep the torch of literature burning, rather than watch it become extinguished by negating forces and conditions.

To a large extent, Nigerian literature owes its survival in the face of extremely hostile conditions to the mutual determination of the nation's often neglected writers' community and a few other public-spirited people whose individual contributions, either by way of financial or moral support, to the growth of the reading and writing culture will remain unforgotten for a long while.

Over the years, Nigerian writers and literary enthusiasts have consistently defied insurmountable odds in the form of crippling economic crises, intense persecution and censorship by the state, ethnic and religious violence, unbridled crime waves, political instability, and a climate that is bereft of attitudes and values that support the growth and sustenance of intellectual activity, so they could push reading and writing to its deserved heights.

One of the earliest known initiatives in this direction was the famous Mbari Club that flourished in the 1960s. According to actor Jimi Johnson, a one-time secretary of the club, the name 'Mbari' was coined from an Igbo expression meaning "looking around". Metaphorically, writers who founded the club were assumed to be searching for the best way to stimulate the literary environment of those days and nurture the abundant creative talents available in the country. The literary movement that it embodied came into existence ostensibly through the efforts of prominent Nigerian writers, such as the late poet and publisher, Christopher Okigbo and Nigeria's only Nobel Prize laureate, Wole Soyinka, and of course, the German, Ulli Beier, noted for being the moving spirit behind its existence.

At the onset, Mbari was referred to as an African writers and artists' forum. It was set up to promote Nigerian arts and culture and to encourage writers, artists, and dramatists to produce top quality works that could be accepted and recognised internationally. The Fairfield Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, in collaboration with the American Society for African Culture (AMSAC) jointly sponsored its programmes.

Through the club, many Nigerian artists and writers had the opportunity to leave the country to gain attention abroad. Quite a lot of them were involved with the club. Frontline artists like Dr. Bruce Onabrakpeya, Demas Nwoko, Uche Okeke, and the late Ben Enwonwu, and dramatists like Duro Ladipo and Kola Ogunmola benefited from the movement's sponsorship programmes and its fertilising influence.

Mbari also published books written by Nigerian authors. As Johnson put it, Nigerian writers and artists were fortunate enough to have benefited from the club. Part of the evidence of its achievements is the crop of writers and artists that flourished in the 1960s, who also remain a major influence in the development of arts and culture in the country. Unfortunately the club had to fold up, as a result of the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war.

Following the demise of Mbari and the attendant displacement of most of its key members, literary activity experienced a discomforting lull. During this period, a group of young men at the University of Ibadan, comprising Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Niyi Babalola, and Andrew Ameh Abba, came together to form the Ibadan Poetry Club, perhaps the first genre-specific literary group of its kind in the country, which carried on in the tradition of the defunct Mbari club. Those of them who were involved in this project were aspiring poets in their own rights. Periodically, they held meetings that were often dominated by stimulating intellectual discourses and arguments.

In later years, with the advent of what is now referred to as the third and fourth texts of Nigerian writing, the seed planted by Osundare and fellow poets germinated into another literary forum known as the Thursday Group. Like its predecessor, this forum essentially concentrated on the promotion of poetry. Under the leadership of Harry Garuba, a teacher of creative writing at the University of Ibadan, the group set out to make a forceful statement, drawing to its fold an emerging generation of Nigerians whose writings would eventually blend anger and disillusionment with parables of liberation and hope, as pointed out by Femi Osofisan, general manager of the National Theatre in Lagos, to achieve a certain measure of balance that has somewhat lent a distinct character to Nigerian literature. The group held regular meetings that featured poetry readings and engaging debates that sought to redefine the frontiers of new Nigerian writing.

Before it finally suffered the same fate as the Ibadan Poetry Club, the Thursday Group at U.I. managed to achieve its primary objective of raising as many strident poetic voices as possible, enough to call urgent attention to the sorry state of affairs in the country. Through many poetry readings, which it held on campus, the tempo of intellectual activity was largely sustained among both students and staff of the university. Garuba (now a professor) has since relocated to South Africa where he teaches creative writing at the University of Cape Town, but his kindred spirits of the poetry forum haven't given up on the objectives that the group had set out to achieve in the first place.

In 1981, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) was established by frontline Nigerian authors led by celebrated novelist, Chinua Achebe, for the purpose of encouraging the collection, recording, transcription, and translation of the oral literatures of the country from the original languages into other Nigerian and non-Nigerian languages.

Its arrival on the local literary scene was loudly hailed at the time as an initiative worthy of celebration. Since its inception, the association has justified this reception by staying in the forefront of book advocacy and reading promotions in the country. Once in a year, its members nationwide hold a convention to discuss pressing matters and consider new options. Literary prizes are awarded to deserving writers during these meetings and fresh agenda are mapped out. In the recent past, attempts were made to spread its activities beyond its immediate constituency through collaboration with well-known artists and musicians around the country.

ANA currently leads other book-related bodies, such as the Nigerian Book Foundation, Nigerian Publishers Association, Nigerian Booksellers Association, and Readers Association of Nigeria, to name but a few, in the quest to push the Nigerian book and literature to expected heights.

Early this year, the national executive body of the association upped the monetary values of the annual literary prizes by more than a hundred percent in order to promote top quality authorship and to stimulate a healthy competition among the writers, such as would result in the production of excellent materials for the consumption and education of the public.

Almost everybody that is connected with the book in Nigeria aspires to join ANA, just as every female writer in the country wants to identify with the Women Writers' Association of Nigeria (WRITA), which itself is a baby nurtured under the wings of ANA.

Inspired by a Toyin Adewale-Gabriel initiative, the birth of WRITA resulted from the need to create and promote literary awareness and literacy among Nigerian women. But there were other objectives in due course, which also sought to address certain basic issues affecting the quintessential women writer in her environment.

During the last International Women Writers' Forum held in Abuja in 2001, Maria Ajima, former president of the association, identified these issues as child marriage, female circumcision, prostitution, violence against women, rape, and trafficking in women and young children.

According to her, WRITA's principal objective was to attack these problems through creative writing. One of the association's visible achievements so far is the publication of the first anthology of female writing in Nigeria, edited by the pair of Adewale-Gabriel and Omowunmi Segun, both of them emerging writers that have managed to gain some respect within the writers community, and titled Breaking the Silence.

Published in 1996, the book seems to have provided an ideological rallying-point to women writers, which they have set about exploiting to the fullest advantage. It has also emboldened those of them that were languishing in the shadows and encouraged them to lend their weights to the gathering voices of Nigerian women writers. The result is that more women writers are carting home literary prizes and gaining attention internationally.

Besides WRITA and ANA, there is the Young Writers Association of West Africa, and Krazitivity, an internet-based mailing group started by Nigerian writers living abroad. In their own individual ways, both writers' bodies are committed to lifting Nigerian literature to greater heights and relevance. The Young Writers Association follows the example of ANA by encouraging aspiring young writers across West Africa, as the name implies, and awarding prizes for well-written works of literature. On the other hand, Krazitivity currently aspires to transcend its present status as a forum for literary and intellectual discourse on the Internet by setting up a prize to reward talented and hardworking writers in Nigeria. The group hopes to make this part of its contribution to the development of literature on the home front. The only snag is that the intended prize will be for only poetry.

The beat goes on, as they say, with the assurance of such concerted efforts on the part of these writers' bodies mentioned; it is likely that the torch of literary activity will remain aglow in Nigeria for a long time.