One of Africa’s foremost literary icons, Elechi Amadi, has got a taste of his own sweet medicine, as he is the subject of a fine collection of critical articles in a new book, Elechi Amadi, Literature and the Nigerian Socio-political Environment. The 22-piece collection is the brainchild of a literary collaboration between the Association of Nigerian Authors, Rivers State, and the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.
Edited by a team of editors led by Professor Isaac Eyi Ngulube of the University’s Department of English and Literary Studie, the 314-page book is one of the outcomes of an international conference on creative writing that highlighted the contributions of the Rivers State-born traditional wrestling enthusiast and author, famed globally for his acclaimed novel The Concubine, published in 1966.
The new book has come as an answer to one of the issues raised by the Vice Chancellor, Prof Nlerum S. Okogbule while welcoming delegates to the international conference which the University had hosted in 2022. At the occasion, Okogbule, who is a professor of law, remarked that unlike what obtains in the western world, the non-recognition, in Africa, of the “works of our literary and other academic icons” was one of the problems that needed redressing.
This collection of 22 erudite articles is perhaps part of the responses to Okogbule’s challenge. The bulk of the articles deal with Elechi Amadi’s works and on scholarship that centres around him, while the rest take on diverse other literary subjects.
Some of the articles include: “Elechi Amadi: The Art and Commitment of the Story Teller” by Kontein Trinya, professor of poetry, who argues, among other things and against the tide of widely held view that Elechi Amadi abhors commitment, that indeed the author is a committed artist. “’The cultural nationalism’ of which Williams speaks with respect to Achebe and African literature of the colonial era, is that literature pursuing a cause? Or is it lesser commitment because it is not couched in Marxist terminology”, he asks rhetorically (p.21).
Other articles include “A Certain Amount of Madness: the Worldview, Culture, Religion and Ideology of Elechi Amadi”, by Isaac Eyi Ngulube, who in this Lead paper posit, inter alia, that “Amadi demands of his readers to display great dignity or nobility in their African roots whereas other writers explore the dynamics of conflict or cultural clash with the West”, gesturing towards Achebe, John Munonye, Nkem Nwankwo, Buchi Emecheta, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, among others.
Weighing in on the language aspect of Amadi scholarship, Ibiere Ken-Maduako, professor of linguistics at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, in her paper “A Pragmatic Analysis of Two Poems by Elechi Amadi”, co-authored with Stanley Ordu of the same institution, x-rays the linguistic dynamics of two of Amadi’s poems, “Song of the Dead” and “Morning” using mechanisms such as phonological and morphological analysis, speech acts, syntactical and stylistic analysis, among others, broadly using the multi-modal critical pragmatic model, a model propounded by Ken-Maduako.
On her own, Priye E. Iyalla-Amadi, Elechi Amadi’s widow and professor of French, added more than a personal dimensions to the enrichment of the discourse. In her paper titled “Elechi Amadi the Poet: Feminist or Womanist?”, she relates Amadi’s poetry to current trends in gender and feminist studies, and tries to locate some of his works within the interface of Womanism and Feminism, which is a brave scholastic move, given that, in the space within which African literary critics operate, Elechi Amadi is more likely to be associated with patriarchal, and therefore, anti-feminist postures than with sentiments affirming any strand of feminism, notwithstanding what some consider Amadi’s “soft spot for women” (Albert 105).
Scholarly articles in the book include “Humanism and African Literary Criticism, Redressing a Critical Shortcoming” by veteran university don, Bobo Agava, who advances a theory that the dominant critical canons on the African literary scene do not provide a ready fit for certain conditioned by Africans’ socio-cultural consciousness, thus leading to the unacceptable “lumping of some African writers into literary categories to which they do not truly belong” (163).
On his part, Ndubuisi Ogbuagu in his article “Civil War Metaphor and Environmental Degradation in Ifeanyichukwu Duruoha’s Eaters of Dust and Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun” , using the Nigerian Civil War as metaphor, points to the horrors and devastations of war, especially on the Biafran side, as evidence that the best way to fight a war is to deploy the weapon of dialogue – in order words, to refrain from it!
John Otu, in his paper, “Elechi Amadi: Celebrating and Interrogating Traditional African Beliefs” starts off on the notion that Amadi is quite possibly the only African modern novelist “whose early works do everything but allow even a shadow of the white man or foreigner” and goes on to explore Amadi’s immersion in psychology and African cultural ethos. In his works, chiefly the concubine.
In his own article, “Pretensions to Divinity: Human Dimensions of the Gods in Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru”, Anaele Ihuoma suggests that the gods who are supposed to help humans are themselves helpless, and questions the very essence of their divinity.
In “Electroconvulsive Use of Proverbs in Elechi Amadi’s Concubine, Okachukwu Wosu explores Amadi’s inventive use of Ikwerre/Igbo proverbs, usually adopted to avoid having to state inconvenient truths in a plain manner that could cause offence. Sample: ‘a child cannot scratch for food with her two legs simultaneously (p.99). Amadi’s use of proverbs is also Ndubuisi Nwaonyeocha’s preoccupation in his article, but this time, The Great Ponds, part of Amadi’s famed trilogy, is his field of exploration.
On his part Daniel Eluke tackles the invincible Isiburu, as he wrestles with demon of rituals, culture and tradition in “Dramatisation of Egelege Wrestling Festival of Iwhuruohna People of Rivers State: A Study of Elechi Amadi’s Isiburu”. Eluke also reviewed the “Symbolism in the Tragedy of Adata by Michael Nwaesei: A Semiotic Perspective”. In The nature of Conflict in Elechi Amadi’s Concubine, Kingsley Echem avers that the novel makes a case for harmony between humans and spirits.
Joyce Duru’s review of two of Amadi’s poems in “God-Determinism in Elechi Amadi’s ‘To Ali’ and ‘Imo River’ precedes Humphrey Ogu fine analysis of Amadi’s drama and dramaturgy in “Intercultural Marriages in Elechi Amadi’s The Woman of Calabar and Peppersoup. There is a return to the theme of proverbs with Stephen Akirika and Charity Elekima co-authoring “Pragmatics Analysis of Proverbs in EA’s The Concubine and The Great Ponds.
There is a slight diversion into the nagging issue of national security, with “Language-based Solutions to Insecurity in Nigeria: integrative Pragmatic Approach” co-authored by Ngulube and Emmanuel O. Alfred. There is a return to Adata with “Ecocriticism in Michael Igwebuike Uwaesei’s The Tragedy of Adata” by Paul Bulabari Fubara.
Apart from that of Okogbule, the book also contains goodwill messages from Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, Professor of Literature at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi State, and chairperson of the governing board of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, as well as those of Wale Okediran General Secretary of the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), who describes Amadi as “an icon of immeasurable esteem”, and Camilus Ukah, former national President, Association of Nigerian Authors, who commended the theme of the conference that yielded the book as “highly relevant” at a time the country is “troubled by divisiveness and toxic politics” (p.11).
The team of co-editors who worked with Isaac Eyi Ngulube were Ibiere Ken-Maduako, Ndubuisi Davidson Ogbuagu and Anaele Ihuoma.
The book Elechi Amadi, Literature and the Nigerian Sociopolitical Environment is more than a celebration of the literary icon. It speaks to the diversity of scholarship on Elechi Amadi and, indeed, some hitherto less illuminated aspects of Nigerian contemporary literature.
Anaele Ihuoma, author of Imminent River, is currently a doctoral student of English and Literary Studies at the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.
Works cited
Albert, Queen. “Gynandrism in Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine”. Ogbujah, Columbus N. and
Blessing Diala-Ogamba, eds.. Deconstructing Boundaries: A Festschrift in Honour of Prof. Chioma Carol Opara. 101-112. Ibadan: University Press Plc. 2024.
