Nkem Nwankwo

Nkem Nwankwo (12 June 1936 – 12 June 2001) was a Nigerian novelist and poet.[1]

Biography

Born in Nawfia-Awka, a village near the Igbo city of Onitsha in Nigeria, Nwankwo attended University College in Ibadan, gaining a BA in 1962.[2] After graduating he took a teaching job at Ibadan Grammar School, before going on to write for magazines, including Drum and working for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.[3]

He wrote several stories for children that were published in 1963 such as Tales Out of School.[4] He then wrote More Tales out of School in 1965.[5]

Writer of short stories and poems, Nwankwo gained significant attention with his first novel Danda (1964),[6] which was made into a widely performed musical that was entered in the 1966 World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.[3] During the Nigerian Civil War Nwankwo worked on Biafra's Arts Council.[7] In 1968, in collaboration with Samuel X. Ifekjika, he wrote Biafra: The Making of a Nation.[4] After the civil war, he returned to Lagos and worked on the national newspaper, the Daily Times.[3] His subsequent works included the satire My Mercedes Is Bigger than Yours.[8]

During the 1970s, Nwankwo earned a Master's and Ph.D. at Indiana University.[9] He also wrote about corruption in Nigeria. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States and taught at Michigan State University and Tennessee State University.[10]

He died in his sleep in Tennessee, from complications from a heart imbalance that he had been battling for some years.[11]

Books
  • The Scapegoat — 1984 (Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers)[12]
  • My Mercedes Is Bigger than Yours — 1975[8]
  • Danda - 1963 (Lagos: African Universities Press; London: Deutsch, 1964)[13]
  • Tales Out of School (short stories; 1963)[14]

Short stories
  • The Gambler, in: Black Orpheus no. 9[15]
  • His Mother, in: Nigeria Magazine no. 80, March 1964[16]
  • The Man Who Lost in: Nigeria Magazine no. 84, March 1965[16]

Other
  • Sex Has Been Good To Me (reprint of essays), 2004
  • Shadow of the Masquerade (autobiography), Nashville, TN: Niger House Publications 1994, pp. 58–61
  • A Song for Fela & Other Poems. Nashville, TN: Nigerhouse, 1993
  • Theatre reviews in: Nigeria Magazine no. 72, March 1962

References
  1. "Nkem Nwankwo". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
  2. "Nkem Nwankwo". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
  3. Oyekan Owomoyela, The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945, Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 132–33.
  4. Owomoyela, Oyekan (2008-10-21). The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-51215-2.
  5. Nwankwo, Nkem (1965). More Tales Out of School. African Universities Press. ISBN 9789934702020.
  6. Lynn, Thomas J., "Tricksters Don't Walk the Dogma: Nkem Nwankwo's 'Danda'", College Literature, Summer 2005, Vol. 32, Issue 3, p. 1.
  7. Owomoyela, Oyekan (2008-10-21). The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-51215-2.
  8. Okeke-Ezigbo, Emeka (1984-07-01). "The Automobile as Erotic Bride: Nkem Nwankwo's My Mercedes Is Bigger Than Yours". Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 25 (4): 199–208. doi:10.1080/00111619.1984.9937802. ISSN 0011-1619.
  9. Killam, G. D.; Rowe, Ruth (2000). The Companion to African Literatures. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33633-0.
  10. "Nkem Nwankwo". Anderson Brown's Literary Blog, 11 January 2010.
  11. Tunde Okoli, "Nigeria: Author, Nkem Nwankwo is Dead", AllAfrica, 3 July 2001.
  12. Nwankwo, Nkem (1984). The Scapegoat. Fourth Dimension. ISBN 978-978-156-150-4.
  13. Nwankwo, Nkem (1964). Danda (First ed.). Andre Deutsch.
  14. Killam, G. D.; Kerfoot, Alicia L. (2008). Student Encyclopedia of African Literature. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-33580-8.
  15. Black Orpheus was an influential literary periodical in Ibadan, founded in 1957 by Ulli Beier, see Bernth Lindfors, Black Orpheus, in: European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, Vol. 2, John Benjamins Publishing, 1986, pp. 669–679.
  16. Roscoe, Adrian A.; Roscoe, Adrian (1971). Mother is Gold: A Study in West African Literature. CUP Archive. ISBN 978-0-521-09644-7.
  • Akwanya, A. N. The Self in the Mirror: Nkem Nwankwo and the Study of Exhibitionism in: OKIKE 39 (1988) 39-52.
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