Library Weekly

The ASCL's Library Weekly is our library’s weekly spotlight on African people and events. Inspired by the SciHiBlog, this service is based on information retrieved from Wikipedia and Wikidata and is completed with selected titles from the ASCL Library Catalogue.

N.B. The weeklies are not updated and reflect the state of information at a given point in time.

Library Weekly archive

Cyprian Ekwensi

Cyprian Ekwensi (Source: English Wikipedia based on https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2021/12/01/nigeria-today-is-like-a-yarn-by-cyprian-ekwensi/) On 4 November 2007, Nigerian novelist, short-story writer and children’s author Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi died in Enugu at the age of 86. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize in Literature in 1968 and the Nigeria Book Fair Trust's Life Achievement Award in 2004.

Cyprian Ekwensi was born in Minna, Niger State, on 26 September 1921. He was educated at the Universities of Ibadan and Ghana, and at the Chelsea School of Pharmacy. Ekwensi was employed as Head of Features at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and by the Ministry of Information during the First Republic. He served as chair of the Bureau of External Publicity in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War.

Ekwensi wrote hundreds of short stories, radio and television scripts, and several dozen novels, including children's books. His 1954 'People of the City' was his first book to garner international attention. His novel 'Drummer Boy' (1960), based on the life of Benjamin 'Kokoro' Aderounmu was a perceptive and powerful description of the wandering, homeless and poverty-stricken life of a street artist. His most successful novel was 'Jagua Nana' (1961), about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, 'Jagua Nana's Daughter'.

(Source: Wikipedia)