Library Weekly

On 25 March 2019, Nigerian poet and novelist Gabriel Imomotimi Okara died at the age of 97 in Yenagoa, Nigeria. The first modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978) and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005). In both his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery, and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritudist".

Gabriel Okara was born in Bomoundi in the Niger Delta on 24 April 1921. He was educated at Government College Umuahia,and later at Yaba Higher College. During World War II, he attempted to enlist in the British Royal Air Force but did not complete pilot training, instead he worked for a time for the British Overseas Airways Corporation (later British Airways).

In 1945 Okara found work as a printer and bookbinder for colonial Nigeria's government-owned publishing company. He remained in that post for nine years, during which he began to write. At first he translated poetry from Ijaw into English and wrote scripts for government radio. He studied journalism at Northwestern University in 1949, and before the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) worked as Information Officer for the Eastern Nigerian Government Service. From 1972 to 1980 he was director of the Rivers State Publishing House in Port Harcourt.

After leaving school Okara wrote plays and features for radio, and in 1953 his poem "The Call of the River Nun" won an award at the Nigerian Festival of Arts. Some of his poetry was published in the literary magazine Black Orpheus, and by 1960 he had won recognition as an accomplished literary craftsman, his poetry being translated into several languages.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Selected publications

Gabriel Okara in Conversation with Professor Azuonye / Chukwuma Azuonye and Gabriel Okara.
Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series, no. 16, 2006
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/africana_faculty_pubs/16

The dreamer, his vision : poems /  Gabriel Okara. Port Harcourt : University of Port Harcourt Press, 2004

Towards the Evolution of an African Language for African Literature / Gabriel Okara.
In: Kunapipi, 12(2), 1990.
https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol12/iss2/4

Gabriel Okara : the poet as lonely African / Thomas Knipp. Waltham, Mass. : African Studies association, 1980
See also: Matatu, 2001, Vol.23 (1), p.141-160

The fisherman's invocation / Gabriel Okara. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1978

Dem-say : interviews with eight Nigerian writers : Michael J. C. Echeruo, Obi Egbuna, Cyprian Ekwensi, John Munonye, Gabriel Okara, Kole Omotoso, Ola Rotimi, Kalu Uka / Bernth Lindfors. - Austin : African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, 974

The voice /  Gabriel Okara. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1970

Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara, read by Chi-Chi Nwanoku

20th-century Nigerian poets via DBpedia and Wikidata