Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- EDITORIAL ARTICLE: War in African Literature: Literary Harvests, Human Tragedies
- ARTICLES
- The Muted Index of War in African Literature & Society
- ‘Life in the Camp of the Enemy’: Alemseged Tesfai's Theatre of War
- Sacrifice & the Contestation of Identity in Chukwuemeka Ike's Sunset at Dawn
- Of War & Madness: A Symbolic Transmutation of the Nigeria–Biafra War in Select Stories from The Insider: Stories of War & Peace from Nigeria
- Becoming a Feminist Writer: Representation of the Subaltern in Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra
- Politics & Human Rights in Non-Fiction Prison Literature
- Problems of Representing the Zimbabwean War of Liberation in Mutasa's The Contact, Samupindi's Pawns & Vera's The Stone Virgins
- The Need to Go Further? Dedication & Distance in the War Narratives of Alexandra Fuller & Alexander Kanengoni
- History, Memoir & a Soldier's Conscience: Philip Efiong's Nigeria & Biafra: My Story
- Of the Versification of Pain: Nigerian Civil War Poetry
- REVIEWS
- Index
Of the Versification of Pain: Nigerian Civil War Poetry
from ARTICLES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- EDITORIAL ARTICLE: War in African Literature: Literary Harvests, Human Tragedies
- ARTICLES
- The Muted Index of War in African Literature & Society
- ‘Life in the Camp of the Enemy’: Alemseged Tesfai's Theatre of War
- Sacrifice & the Contestation of Identity in Chukwuemeka Ike's Sunset at Dawn
- Of War & Madness: A Symbolic Transmutation of the Nigeria–Biafra War in Select Stories from The Insider: Stories of War & Peace from Nigeria
- Becoming a Feminist Writer: Representation of the Subaltern in Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra
- Politics & Human Rights in Non-Fiction Prison Literature
- Problems of Representing the Zimbabwean War of Liberation in Mutasa's The Contact, Samupindi's Pawns & Vera's The Stone Virgins
- The Need to Go Further? Dedication & Distance in the War Narratives of Alexandra Fuller & Alexander Kanengoni
- History, Memoir & a Soldier's Conscience: Philip Efiong's Nigeria & Biafra: My Story
- Of the Versification of Pain: Nigerian Civil War Poetry
- REVIEWS
- Index
Summary
The idea of an extraordinary Nigerian destiny underwent a collective shock with the eruption of the Nigerian civil war. The high hopes offered by the departure of the colonialist from Nigerian's political scape were completely eroded by the crisis of the immediate post-independence era. What was initially a tribal military discord within the elitist cadre of the Nigerian military degenerated into a destructive tangle of national tragedy. Thus, after an inchoate euphoric ecstasy of self-rule, disillusion set in, resulting from what Neil Lazarus (1986) describes as Africa's ‘preliminary overestimation of emancipatory potential’ (p. 50).
The Nigerian civil war is about the ugliest moment in the history of post-colonial Nigeria – a moment of hatreds and sufferings. Benjamin Stora (1999) describes the war scape as a place ‘where gunpowder is in the air and where the combatants' weakness and heroism are revealed’ (p. 80). This period recorded a bumper harvest of artistic and imaginative creativity – most of which painted an apocalyptic vision. Numerous voices spoke of the tragedy and cruelty of the war. Commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the military cabal, Nigerian nationalists, scholars, students and politicians of all sides produced a plethora of print, ranging from autobiographies and memoirs to pamphlets, plays, poetry collections and poems, scattered across the pages of journals and anthologies.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War in African Literature Today , pp. 128 - 136Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008