Butta and the Tower of Bling - African American Mainstream Literature

Butta and the Tower of Bling is a fast-paced adventure into the world of urban fiction. Corey Burkes in this his debut novel has produced mainstream fiction that will make the reader sit up and take notice of the characters rich with dialogues who speak and act like people we know. The novel is a brilliant depiction of a cross-section of American Culture with which we can all identify. Shady characters, evil antagonists, gutsy protagonists, and a host of supporting characters all spring to life from the pages of Butta' and the Tower of Bling.

Burkes' unique writing style is both edgy and irreverent. His characters speak and act like everyday people you meet on the street. They remind you of the people who make up the heart and soul of any American city; some you know, some you don't know, and some you wish you had never met. As Butta' herself claims, "I speak so I can be understood." Fully fleshed out and conveying attitude, these are the kind of fictional characters that are so believable you want to keep on reading.

The story line is based on a deep seated grudge held by Butta. Hung alongside her family as a small child by a nasty white supremacist, Butta spends her entire life devoted to taking down this neo-Nazi who has become the master of a diamond making invention that her father created. Butta a genius at cat burglaring hires an entourage of equally interesting support to help her pull of her biggest heist yet, stealing back the invention her father created!

The plot has multiple layers that demonstrate a maturity of writing skills seldom seen so early in an author's career. The consistent build up to the climax keeps the reader eager to turn to the next page. The careful blend of dialogue and background is so balanced and blended that the reader becomes absorbed in the story. From the botched lynching and thieving white supremacist to the harrowing escape in the final moments of the book, the pace is never dull, the story enthralling, and the rush to the finish will have the reader up all night racing to the finish. The protagonist's father says it best, " Now I know why we call you Butta....you so smooth."

Butta' and the Tower of Bling

Corey A. Burkes

Publisher: Skyelightbooks.com

ISBN: 978-0-979-6352

Publisher year: 2007

Shannon Evans is recognized in the Puget Sound as an expert in how to make your business have a web presence rather than just a web page. Her conversational marketing techniques and practices outlined by Practical Local Search, LLC you will see your small business presence on the web increase: http://www.practicallocalsearch.com/ She is a consultant for social marketing campaigns that allow you to organize your marketing and sales efforts in an inexpensive delivery platform that is easy to set up and manage. The ability to send, deliver, and track any installed resource gives you the power to create a marketing program quickly and easily in a scalable format that can grow with your business.

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The Power of Father-Child Relationships Depicted in African American Literature

Recently, I moderated a black men's seminar at Zahra's bookstore in Inglewood, California. The group present consisted of about 20 men and 7 women. Our guest author was Ken Mask, M.D., from New Orleans, Louisiana. (Titles: Murder on the Butt, Luke Jacobs, PI, City Park Murder.)

During the two hours, we covered diverse subjects such as what men really feel about being fatherless, how to recognize the silent cries of men, what single women need to know when rearing a male child, men's fear of commitment, and the behavior of broken men. However, the main topic we covered was the confidence a male child acquires from his father.

Although women were present in the seminar, their concerns were why men had such a fear of commitment. What we concluded, though, was that this fear of commitment often could be traced back to the lack of a strong father figure in their lives.

Clearly, the better modeling men have of responsible fatherhood, the better fathers they can become.

From the disclosures made during the seminar, there is definitely a need for black men to have an example of how powerful a good father's influence can be.

In an ideal world we would have all grown up with strong fathers in spite of racism, unemployment, alcoholism, prison and the myriad things which negatively impact Black men. But unfortunately, we don't live in the ideal world.

So I'm a strong believer in bibliotherapy--using books as a way of healing our souls.

Often, for Black people, these examples can be found in African American literature.

Here is a list of books, which deal with the confidence a male (or female) child acquires from a father. These are just a few of the books. You can compile your own list.

Sweet Summer, Growing Up With and Without My Dad by Bebe Moore Campbell. This book details how the late Bebe Moore Campbell would go visit her divorced father in the summer while she was growing up. Although he was in a wheel chair, he stood tall in teaching her the gentle lessons of womanhood.

Sounder by William H. Armstrong. Even though the sharecropping father is sent away to prison, he had a strong presence in the book and he definitely influenced his son to grow up as a man.

In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, Cassie Logan and her three brothers come to understand why the land they own means so much to their Papa. "Look out there, Cassie girl. All that belongs to you. You ain't never had to live on nobody's place but your own and long as I live and the family survives, you'll never have to. That's important. You may not understand that now but one day you will. Then you'll see."

In the classic, Roots, by Alex Haley, the fathers in this family saga were strong, inspite of captivity, slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. Who can ever forget the handing down of the story of the "Old African" from generation to generation?

In All in the Family, anthology, Janice Sims, Melanie Schuster, Maxine Thompson, the father, Mr. Johnson, is a modern day farmer, and a good father to his four daughters, which helps them pick good mates.

Murder on the Butt, Luke Jacobs, PI, City Park Murder, Luke Jacob, PI, City Park Murder, Ken Mask, M.D. As a private Investigator, the main character, Luke Jacob always reflects back to what his late police father would have done.

In A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. Who can ever forget the pride reflected in the son's face when his father, Walter, said, "We are very proud, and this is my son, who makes the sixth generation of our family in this country..." Also, the fact that his father stood up, refused to sell back the house to the bigoted neighbors, and did the right thing.

After all, isn't that what African American literature is about? Showing us a way to live in the world with dignity, in spite of racism, bigotry and poverty?

Back to the seminar, at the end of the forum, these are some of the solutions we came up with for fathers.

1. Include God in your life as the head of your family.

2. Turn off the TV and the Internet and communicate with your children.

3. Take time to engage in old-fashioned pastimes such as bible studies, fishing, camping, bowling.

4. Take time to hug your children.

5. Tell your children you love them.

As for fathers who have been absent in your children's lives, make time to become involved with your children, even if they are now adults. It is never too late.

Dr. Maxine E. Thompson is the owner of Black Butterfly Press, Maxine Thompson?s Literary Services, Thompson Literary Agency and http://www.maxineshow.com. She hosts Internet radio shows on http://www.artisfirst.com and on http://www.maxineshow.com. She hosted on Voiceamerica.com from 3/02 to 12/06 and is currently taking a break. She is the author of eight titles, The Ebony Tree, No Pockets in a Shroud, A Place Called Home, The Hush Hush Secrets of Writing Fiction That Sells, How to Publish, Market and Promote your Book Via Ebook Publishing, The Hush Hush Secrets of How To Create a Life You Love, Anthology, SECRET LOVERS, (with novella, Second Chances,) and Summer of Salvation. SECRET LOVERS made the Black Expression's Book Club Bestselling list on 7-8-06 (after a 6-6-06 release date.) A new anthology, All in the Family, (Summer of Salvation) came out in April 2007. Another new anthology, Never Knew Love Like This Before,(her novella, Katrina Blues,) is due out in June 2007.

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Alice Walker Breaks Out As One of the Leading Female Voices in African American Literature

An African American writer and activist Alice Walker began publishing her fiction and poetry during the latter years of the Black Arts movement in the 1960's. Born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, to sharecropper parents,  she knew racism and poverty only too well and with works expressing the need for the tackling of such issues she has become one of the best-known and most highly respected writers from the U.S. along with such writers as Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor , commonly associated with the post-1970s surge in African American women's literature.  

Her activism started after being educated at Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College, where Walker, in a commencement speech spoke out against the silence of that institution's curriculum to African-American culture and history. Active in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the South, she used her own and others' experiences as material for her searing examination of politics and black-white relations in her novel Meridian (1976).

Beginning with her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Walker has focused on such issues as sexual and racial realities within black communities as well as the unavoidable connections between family and society. For exposing the former, she has been criticized by some African-American male critics and theorists; for exploring the latter, she has been awarded numerous prizes while winning the hearts and minds of countless black and white readers.

Walker's heroes, often women in the African-American community struggling to emerge from a history of oppression and abuse,  find strength in binding with other women and turnng to the African past in the search for alternatives to this rapacious technological civilization. 

Her most famous work, coming out in 1982, The Color Purple written in epistolary form, chronicles the life of a poor and abused southern black American woman  growing up between 1909 and 1947 in a town in Georgia who after her long suffering of abuse at the hands of several men eventually triumphs over oppression and attains self-realization through affirming female relationships.  

Infused with incest, lesbian love, and sibling devotion,Color Purple also introduces blues music as a unifying thread in the lives of many of the characters. In it, she brought together many of the characters and themes of her previous works thus creating "an American novel of permanent importance."

Narrated through the voice of Celie, The Color Purple is structured through a series of letters written by a southern black woman (Celie), reflecting a history of oppression and abuse suffered at the hands of the men. Celie writes about the misery of childhood incest, physical abuse, and loneliness in her "letters to God." After being repeatedly raped by her stepfather, Celie is forced to marry a widowed farmer with three children. Yet her deepest hopes are realized with the help of a loving community of women, including her husband's mistress, Shug Avery, and Celie's sister, Nettie. Celie gradually learns to see herself as a desirable woman, a healthy and valuable part of the universe.

The novel charts Celie's resistance to the oppression surrounding her, and the liberation of her existence through positive and supportive relations with other women.  Perhaps even more than Walker's other works, [The Color Purple] especially affirms that the most abused of the abused can transform herself.

Set in rural Georgia during segregation, The Color Purple brings components of nineteenth-century slave autobiography and sentimental fiction together with a confessional narrative of sexual awakening.

The book was resoundingly praised for its masterful recreation of black folk speech, in which, Walker converts Celie's "subliterate dialect into a medium of remarkable expressiveness, color, and poignancy," which he found impossible to imagine Celie apart from; for "through it, not only a memorable and infinitely touching character but a whole submerged world is vividly called into being."  The Color Purple (1982) has been praised for Walker's forthright depiction of taboo subjects and her clear rendering of folk idiom and dialect. It has generated the most public attention as a book and as a major motion picture. The novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, and was made into a popular motion picture which received several Academy Award nominations.  

The awards and its being adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg brought the book together with Walker herself to the attention of mainstream America thus becoming known to an even wider audience. The musical stage adaptation of the book premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in 2004 and opened on Broadway in 2005.

But this brought her not only fame but controversy as well. She was widely criticized for negative portrayals of men, though many critics admitted that the movie presented more simplistic negative pictures than the book's more nuanced portrayals. For men come in  mostly for a raw deal with Walker's harshest critics condemning her portrayal of black men in the novel as "male-bashing."  A recurrent feature in her fiction are black males representing a generation of men who 'had failed women and themselves.' It, however, established her as a dominant voice in the quest for a new black identity.

The Color Purple became a point of demarcation in Walker's work, being both the completion of the cycle of novels she announced in the early 70's and the beginning of new emphases for her as a writer. For fourteen years earlier Walker had declared herself an African American woman writer who was committed to exploring the lives of black women completing the cycle demonstrating: "the survival and liberation of black women through the strength and wisdom of others."  

She described the three types of women characters she felt were missing from much of the literature of the United States.

Firstly, there were those who were exploited both physically and emotionally. Their lives were narrow and confining and they were driven sometimes to madness. These were typified in Margaret and Mem Copeland in her first novel.

Secondly there were those who were victims not so much of physical violence as of psychic violence, thus becoming women alienated from their own culture.

The third type represented most effectively by Celie and Shug in The Color Purple are those African American women who despite the oppression they suffer achieve some wholeness and create spaces for other oppressed communities.

Refusing to ignore the tangle of personal and political themes, Walker has produced half a dozen novels, two collections of short stories, numerous volumes of poetry, and books of essays. Though she has attained fame and recognition in many countries, she has not lost her sense of rootedness in the South or her sense of indebtedness to her mother for showing her what the life of an artist entailed.     

Writing of this central experience in her famous essay, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," she talks about watching her mother at the end of a day of back-breaking physical labor on someone else's farm return home only to walk the long distance to their well to get water for her garden planted each year at their doorstep.   Walker observed her design that garden, putting tall plants at the back and planting so as to have something in bloom from early spring until the end of summer.   Though Walker did not recognize what she was seeing at the time, the adult Walker now sees her mother as an artist full of dedication, a keen sense of design and balance, and a tough conviction that life without beauty is unbearable.

Recognized as one of the leading voices among black American women writers, Alice Walker has produced an acclaimed and varied body of work, including poetry, novels, short stories, essays, and criticism. Her writings portray the struggle of black people throughout history, and are praised for their insightful and riveting portraits of black life, in particular the experiences of black women in a sexist and racist society.  

Walker has described herself as a "womanist" - referring to a black feminist - which she defines in the introduction to her book of essays, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, as one who "appreciates and prefers women's culture, women's emotional flexibility ... women's strength" and is "committed to [the] survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female."  

A theme throughout Walker's work is the preservation of black culture, with her female characters forging important links to maintain continuity in both personal relationships and communities

Walker is concerned with "heritage," which to her "is not so much the grand sweep of history or artifacts created as it is the relations of people to each other, young to old, parent to child, man to woman."  

 Further Readings:Alice Walker Directory

Allan, Tuzyline. Womanist and Feminist Aesthetics: A Comparative Review. Athens: Ohio UP, 1995.
Butler-Evans, Elliott. Race, Gender, and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the Fiction of Toni Cade Bombara, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1989.
Russell, Sandi. Render Me My Song: African-American Women Writers from Slavery to the Present. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.

I Love Myself When I Am Laughing...& Then Again When I Am Looking Mean & Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader. Zora Neale Hurston; Alice Walker, editor. Trade Paperback, 1979.
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose: Alice Walker, Trade Paperback, 1984 (originally 1983)

Alice Walker & Zora Neale Hurston: The Common Bond: Lillie P. Howard, Contributions in Afro-American & African Series #163 (1993)

Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult: A Meditation on Life, Spirit, Art & the Making of the Film, The Color Purple, Ten Years Later: Alice Walker, 1997 (originally 1996).


Alice Walker Banned: The Banned Works: Alice Walker, edited and with commentary by Patricia Holt, Hardcover, 1996.
Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism: Essays, Speeches, Statements and Letters. Alice Walker, Hardcover, 1997. Also Paperback.

Alice Walker: An Annotated Bibliography: Erma D. Banks and Keith Byerman, Hardcover, 1989.
Alice Walker: Harold Bloom, editor. Library Binding, January 1990. Critical essays on The Color Purple and other works by Alice Walker.
Erma Davis Banks and Keith Byerman, Alice Walker: An Annotated Bibliography, 1968-1986 (New York: Garland, 1989).
Harold Bloom, ed., Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," Modern Critical Interpretations series (New York: Chelsea House, 2000).
Ikenna Dieke, ed., Critical Essays on Alice Walker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999).

Henry Louis Gates and K. A. Appiah, eds., Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present (New York: Amistad Press, 1993).
Maria Lauret, Alice Walker, Modern Novelists series (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000).
Evelyn C. White, Alice Walker: A Life (New York: Norton, 2004).
Donna Haisty Winchell, Alice Walker (New York: Twayne, 1992).
The Color Purple, writ. Alice Walker and Menno Meyjes, dir. Steven Spielberg (Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros., 1985). Qiana Whitted, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Related Links

Alice Walker--Anniina Jokinen

Selected Bibliography - Paul P. Reuben

Essays

Living by the Word: Selected Writings 1973-1987 (1988)In Search of Our Mother's Gardens (1983)Anything we love can be saved : a writer's activism (1997)Visual and sound material A place of rage. Interviews: T Minh-Ha Trinh; June Jordan; Angela Yvonne Davis; Alice Walker; Pratibha Parmar. (1991), videocassette (52 min.) New York, NY : Women Make MoviesMy life as my self (1996) sound cassette (ca. 90 min.)Boulder, CO : Sound True AudioVoices of power, Bell Hooks; Alice Walker; Martha L Wharton; Valerie Lee (2000, 1999) : Videorecording (29 min.)Princeton, NJ : Films for the Humanities & Sciences,Giving birth, finding form, Alice Walker; Isabel Allende; Jean Shinoda Bolen, (1993) sound cassette, Boulder, CO : Sounds True RecordingsPema Chödrön & Alice Walker in conversation. (1998) videocassette (51 min.)Boulder, CO : Sounds True,Gardening the soul, with Michael Toms. (2000) 2 sound cassettes. Carlsbad, Calif. : Hay House AudioAlice Walker: Possessing the secret of joy. (2000, 1992) videocassette (51 min.).Princeton, N.J. : Films for the Humanities & Sciences,

Born and schooled in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Arthur Smith hasbeen teaching English for over thirty years. He is now a Senior Lecturer of English at Fourah Bay College where he has been lecturing for the past nine years.

Mr Smith's writings have been in various media. He participated in a seminar on contemporary American Literature in the U.S. in 2006. He has attended various conferences some of which he has presented papers. His writings could be read at his personal webste: arthuredgaresmith.net.

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The Death of Popular Fiction Writer Cyprian Ekwensi is a Big Loss to African Literature

Cyprian Ekwensi (September 26, 1921 - November 4, 2007), one of the grand old men of African fiction-and one of the few who made the transition from Onitsha-market-pamphlet-fiction to an author with at least something of an international reputation passed away as The Literary Saloon announced on Sunday 4th of November in Enugu at the age of 86. DARKNESS fell again in the Nigerian literary firmament .. when veteran novelist, pharmacist and public commentator, Cyprian Ekwensi passed on. So another Lagos-based paper The Guardian announced this sad event.

The author of the popular Jagua Nana series of novels died at the Niger Foundation in Enugu where he he had undergone an operation for an undisclosed ailment.

He is the author of the earliest published fiction depicting social life in the Lagos Metropolis with his down-to-earth style of writing and his prolific output, with over 20 novels to his credit. Ekwensi thus became celebrated as the ancestor of the city novel, which stressed ample description of the locale with a largely episodic style drawn from his earlier pamphleteering.

Mrs. Ekwensi, who is in her late 60's said that she cut short her visit overseas after spending two weeks to fly him from Lagos back to Enugu, adding that in the last one month, they had regularly visited the hospital. "Since we left Lagos, we have not rested. It is from one thing to another ...", she said.

Mrs. Ekwensi, who reeled in waist pain as she told her story, disclosed that the pains increased during their long days at the hospital, while attending to her husband. "The hospital bench became my bed," she complained adding that her husband's condition remained critical until his death. The deceased's eldest son, George who flew in from the U.S. when he learnt about his father's ailment, began consultations with relations and notable indigenes of Anambra State on burial plans.

Speaking with the Daily Sun, the novelist's son, Ike, noted that his father's burial would not be determined by family members only, considering his outstanding contributions to national development.

Ekwensi was due for an award in Lagos, on November 16. He had left Lagos in good spirit a month before with the hope of picking the award later not knowing that he would not make it.

Following the death of this renowned novelist , the Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, past and present governors, ministers of government, writers and All Progressive Grand Alliance have expressed shock over his demise.

They described Ekwensi's death as a great loss to Nigeria and the entire literary world. Factional President-General of Ohanaeze, Dozie Ikedife, said a great Igbo son had departed, stressing that he left enviable legacies that would last for generations to come. "It is a pity. He is one of the greatest authors of our time. . . . He has been around for sometime....Nigerians and the entire literary world will definitely miss him. . . .," he said. Ikedife urged the family to bear the loss with fortitude, trusting in God and believing that he had contributed his best to writing and social engineering.

The governor said Ekwensi's death has created a gap in the state and in the literary world and made assurances that the state government would fully participate in the burial arrangements. Being a traditional chief and titleholder, Ekwensi's family will first meet before officially communicating the news of his passing to the government.

In his tribute, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance Chief Victor Umeh said Ekwensi's death has robbed Nigeria, of one of the greatest literary minds to have passed through the land. He observed that his works 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 crucial role in the eradication of the then dreaded guinea worm disease in old Anambra state as chairman of the state Health Management Board at the time when he (Nwosu) was Commissioner for Health said he would find it difficult to refer to Ekwensi in the past tense, having become used to his resourcefulness as both a writer and administrator.

"It is a terrible blow. . . . He gave me the slogan 'Get rid of guinea worm' when he was chairman Anambra State Health Management Board and I was Commissioner for Health under the late Emeka Omeruah. We traversed the whole of Abakaliki area in the quest to kick out guinea worm. He helped me get funds from Japan to finance the project. We both received former American President Jimmy Carter. A fine man with a fine mind. . . ." Nwosu added.

Former Governor of Old Anambra State, Chief Christian Onoh also described Ekwensi's demise as a big blow to the literary world. Onoh, among the first set of people that paid a sympathy visit to the Hill view Crescent, Independence layout, Enugu residence of the late prolific writer, said that, the news came to him with rude shock, expressing dismay that Ekwensi could die at a time when according to him, " we need him around to reform our education".

Clad in white lace, the elder statesman, said he was however consoled by the fact that the late Ekwensi never wasted his time on earth, adding that his contributions to the literary world would live forever. He said that, Ekwensi who authored many literary books, lived and died for writing and extended his sympathies to the Nigerian literary world as well as the entire south East.

The Minister of Information, Mr John Odey described the late "Ekwensi as a great contributor to the unity of Nigeria and the development of literary education in the country".

The message reads: "the Federal Government received the news of the sudden death of a prominent citizen of your state and a reputable literary icon of this country, Chief Cyprian Ekwensi, with sadness. "I am particularly touched by his death because of his having served as a staff of my ministry where he rose to become a Director".

Reacting to the death of the novelist, National President, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Dr. Wale Okediran, said, "his death, though at a ripe age, marked the end of a tradition of story telling. As a writer of popular fiction, COD was a natural storyteller whose works were both accessible and entertaining."

Okediran, who described the late Ekwensi as his teacher in the popular literature genre, said a structure in the proposed ANA village in Abuja would be named after him as part of ANA's plan to immortalise him, adding that ANA would collaborate with the Nigerian arm of PEN, a global association of writers, to make available, a documentary made on Ekwensi to all Nigerians.

A former ANA President Professor Obafemi, on his part, said "Ekwensi's loss is the loss of a key architect of modern Nigerian literature and the first to carve a national character for Nigerian fiction. He was one of those who erected the canon and pillars of popular fiction in Nigeria. His death has taken away an ancestral voice in the Nigerian creative cosmos."

Professor Olu Obafemi described the late writer as a key figure in the establishment of what is now known as Nigerian literature. According to Obafemi, Ekwensi would forever be remembered as one of the oldest writers of the English expression who kept and gave national character to Nigerian literature. "Ekwensi's death" he said " is a major deprivation to Nigerian literature. He was one of the major architects of modern Nigerian literature, who, as early as in the 1950s and 1960s, began to write about issues and events beyond his ethnic background.

The assistant General Secretary of ANA, Mr Hyacinth Obunseh, described Ekwensi's death as unfortunate. Obunseh said that the literary community and indeed the world would miss him especially for, his peculiar style of writing. "Ekwensi's imaginative and descriptive power will be greatly missed," Obunseh said.. He, however, regretted that the late literary giant did not live long enough to complete his autobiography.

Another writer, Fred Uzo, expressed the hope that Nigeria would "give him the honour that is due to a scholar, a writer and a humanist of his stature.".

Earlier in 2007, Ekwensi released Cash on Delivery, a collection of short stories, which turned out to be his last book. When he turned 86 the previous year, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Lagos State chapter and the Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA), feted him.

Told of the passing on of Ekwensi, poet and past president of ANA, Odia Ofeimu, was "shocked beyond words" to comment immediately.To the newly elected Lagos State ANA chairman, Mr. Chike Ofili, it was an unnerving piece of information. He too withheld his comments till later. When news of the death broke out Nigerian authors were rounding off their yearly convention held in Owerri, Imo State.

Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi was born at Minna in Northern Nigeria on September 26, 1921 to Ogbuefi David Duaka and Uso Agnes Ekwensi. He later lived in Onitsha in the Eastern area.. He 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 years as a forestry officer. He also taught science and worked for Radio Nigeria before entering the Lagos School of Pharmacy which led him on to the University of London where he continued his studies at the Chelsea School of Pharmacy It was during this period that he wrote his earliest fiction Ikolo the Wrestler and Other Tales and When Love Whispers both of which were published in 1947. He also participated in an international writing program in. University of Iowa, USA.

He lectured in pharmacy at Lagos and was employed as a pharmacist by the Nigerian Medical Corporation. After favorable reception of his early writing, Ekwensi joined the Nigerian Ministry for Information and rose to becoming the director of information by the time of the first military coup in 1966. The continuing disturbances in the Western and Northern regions in the summer of 1966, may have led Ekwensi to give up his position and relocate his family at Enugu. There he became chairman of the Bureau for External Publicity in Biafra and an adviser to the head of state, Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu.

Ekwensi began his writing career as a pamphleteer a fact which is clearly reflected in the episodic nature of his novels. This tendency is well illustrated by People of the City (1954)the first major novel to be published by a Nigerian, in which Ekwensi gave a vibrant portrait of life in a West African city. Two novellas for children followed in 1960; both The Drummer Boy and The Passport of Mallam Ilia which were exercises in blending traditional themes with undisguised romanticism.

Ekwensi's most widely read novel, Jagua Nana,which appeared in 1961.returned to the locale of People of the City but boasted a much more cohesive plot centered on the character of Jagua, a courtesan who had a love for the expensive. Even her name was a corruption of the expensive English automobile. Her life personalized the conflict between the old traditional and modern urban Africa. Ekwensi published a sequel in 1987 titled Jagua Nana's Daughter. Ekwensi stressed description of the locale and his episodic style was particularly well suited to the short story.

Burning Grass (1961) is basically a collection of vignettes about a Fulani family through which Ekwensi gives insight into the life of this pastoral people. Ekwensi based the novel and the characters on a real family with whom he had previously live. Between 1961 and 1966 Ekwensi published at least one major work every year. The most important were, Beautiful Feathers (1963) and Iska (1966), and two collections of short stories, Rainmaker (1965) and Lokotown (1966). Ekwensi continued to publish beyond the 1960s, with the novel Divided We Stand (1980) in which he lampooned the Nigerian civil war, the novella Motherless Baby (1980), and The Restless City and Christmas Gold (1975), Behind the Convent Wall (1987), and Gone to Mecca (1991). His work, Divided We Stand (1980), , is slated for discussion by literary experts in a conference on 40 years after the civil war.

Ekwensi also published a number works 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 later works for children include Coal Camp Boy (1971), Samankwe in the Strange Forest (1973), Samankwe and the Highway Robbers (1975), Masquerade Time! (1992), and King Forever! (1992). In recognition of his skills as a writer, Ekwensi was awarded the Dag Hammarskjold International Prize for Literary Merit in 1969.

Arthur Smith was born, grew up and was schooled in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He has taught English since 1977 at Prince of Wales School and, Milton Margai College of Education. He is now a Senior Lecturer at Fourah Bay College where he has been lecturing English, Literature, as well as Creative Writing for the past seven years.

Mr Smith is widely published with his writings appearing in local newspapers as well as in West Africa Magazine, Index on Censorship, Focus on Library and Information Work amongst others.

He was one of 17 international visitors who participated in a seminar on contemporary American Literature sponsored by the U.S.State Department in 2006. His growing thoughts and reflections on this trip which took him to various US sights and sounds could be read at lisnews.org.

His other publications include: Folktales from Freetown, Langston Hughes: Life and Works Celebrating Black Dignity, and 'The Struggle of the Book'

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