Where is Chinweizu? Revisiting Nigeria s Discursive Space thenews-chronicle.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thenews-chronicle.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Share
ALMOST everyone who has the sensibility for debates and discourses, and who is also old enough, will be familiar with the name of Chinweizu. He was the eponymous literary figure that was at the centre of the literary debate around the nature and content of African literature in the 1970s. The debate did not only swirl around him, he was the point’s person for instigating the question of what it means, or does not mean, to do “African literature.” This was a debate that came on the heel of Africa’s political independence, and the end to official colonialism. Independence brought just more than the euphoria of being free at last from the horrors of colonisation. It raised several other crucial issues having to do with what it means to be Africans in thoughts and in deeds. And this discourse resonated in African literature, African History and African philosophy. The African historians took on the gauntlet of challenging the colonial historiographical discourse on blackne
By Tunji Olaopa
Almost everyone who has the sensibility for debates and discourses, and who is also old enough, will be familiar with the name of Chinweizu. He was the eponymous literary figure that was at the center of the literary debate around the nature and content of African literature in the 1970s. The debate did not only swirl around him, he was the points person for instigating the question of what it means, or does not mean, to do âAfrican literature.â This was a debate that came on the heel of Africaâs political independence, and the end to official colonialism. Independence brought just more than the euphoria of being free at last from the horrors of colonization. It raised several other crucial issues having to do with what it means to be Africans in thoughts and in deeds. And this discourse resonated in African literature, African History and African philosophy. The African historians took on the gauntlet of challenging the colonial historiographical disc