Library Weekly

On 13 October 2020, Nigerian poet, playwright and scholar J. P. Clark (John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo) died at the age  of 85. He is most noted for works in which he explored themes such as violence and protest, institutional corruption, European colonialism, the inhumanity of the human race as well as beauty in nature.

Born in Kiagbodo on 6 April 1935, Clark received his early education at the Native Authority School, Okrika (Ofinibenya-Ama), in Burutu LGA (then Western Ijaw) and the prestigious Government College in Ughelli, and his BA degree in English at the University of Ibadan, where he edited various magazines, including the Beacon and The Horn. Upon graduation from Ibadan in 1960, he worked as an information officer in the Ministry of Information, in the old Western Region of Nigeria, as features editor of the Daily Express, and as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. He served for several years as a professor of English at the University of Lagos, a position from which he retired in 1980. While at the University of Lagos he was co-editor of the literary magazine Black Orpheus.

In 1982, along with his wife Ebun Odutola (a professor and former director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos), he founded the PEC Repertory Theatre in Lagos.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Selected publications

Works by J.P. Clark

The Izọn of the Niger Delta / E.J. Alagoa; Tekena N. Tamuno; John Pepper Clark. - Rivers State : Onyoma Research Publications, 2009

All for oil / John Pepper Clark. - Ikeja : Malthouse Press, 2000

Song of a goat / John Pepper Clark; Ebun Clark. - Ibadan : University Press, 1993

Collected plays and poems, 1958-1988 / John Pepper Clark. - Washington, D.C. : Howard University Press, 1991

The Ozidi saga / O̱kabou Ojobolo; John Pepper Clark. Washington, D.C. : Howard University Press, 1991

America, their America / John Pepper Clark. - London [etc.] : Heinemann, 1968

Publications about J.P. Clark and his work

JP Clark : a voyage / Femi Osofisan. - Ibadan : Bookcraft, 2011

J.P. Clark-Bekederemo : the weeping poet / Iyabode Omolara Daniel.
In: African study monographs , vol. 29, no. 4, p. 147-157 (2008)

Palaver : interviews with five African writers in Texas : Chinua Achebe, John Pepper Clark, Dennis Brutus, Ezekiel Mphahlele [and] Kofi Awoonor. - Austin : African and Afro-American Research Institute, University of Texas at Austin
1972

Ozidi / J.P. Clark (University of Abuja / Department Theatre Arts, 2021)

Timeline of 20th-century Nigerian poets via DBpedia and Wikidata