Funso AiyejinaFunso Aiyejina

Born 1949

Gurara Falls

Baobab tree

LagosLagos

Amos TutuolaAmos Tutuola

Born 1920

Chinua AchebeChinua Achebe

Born 1930

Flora NwapaFlora Nwapa

1931-1993

Christopher OkigboChristopher Okigbo

Born 1932

Wole SoyinkaWole Soyinka

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Born 1935

Ken Saro-WiwaKen Saro-Wiwa

1941-1995

Buchi EmechetaBuchi Emecheta

Born 1944

Ben OkriBen Okri

Born 1959

Babatunde Olatunje

Ebenezer Obey

King Sunny Ade

Fela Kuti

Babatunde Olatunje

Ebenezer Obey

King Sunny Ade

Fela Kuti

Sokari Douglas CampSokari Douglas Camp

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IriaboWoman

BirdMasquerade

BirdMasquerade

HippoMasquerade

HippoMasquerade

Pablo PicassoLes Demoiselles d’Avignon

BigMasquerade

BigMasquerade

FlyingFish withBubbles

FlyingFish withBubbles

To Abuehnameh at Four

No, son, I was not going to the hospital to my brother.He died. Yes. He did.Not as in games about doctors and patients which you now playWith your brother

Since your encounters with the surgeon's art earlier in the year.He died:In spite of the doctors: in spite of the nurses: in spite of hope.He died on the last day of April::April::the cruellest month!

But we are now safely into May::May::the month of your birth!And after our sad loss at the end of April's showersLet us welcome back your day of mirthInto the month on whose wet wings of flowersYou danced triumphant into our expectant world.

Child of the ministering rains of the month of MayAnd of green branches garnished with bird-songs of love,Long may you survive the cruel April of the poet's calendar.

No, son, I was not going to the hospital to my brother.He died in April. For real.The doctors couldn’t save him.

But now it’s May, the month of your birth!Let’s celebrate your birthday instead of mourning!May you live through many terrible Aprils to beautiful Mays!

No, son, I had not gone to see my brother.‘Twas April when the illness took his life.But now that month has turned into another,A month of joy for me and for my wife.

Forget about the sorrow that can hound us,And think of how your birthday comes today.Let happiness and pleasure now surround us,As melancholy April turns to May!

No, son, I had not gone to see my brother.‘Twas April when the illness took his life.But now that month has turned into another,A month of joy for me and for my wife.

Forget about the sorrow that can hound us,And think of how your birthday comes today.Let happiness and pleasure now surround us,As melancholy April turns to May!

AllusionAllusion

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which vertu engendred is the flour

Geoffrey Chauceropening of The Canterbury Tales

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which vertu engendred is the flour

Geoffrey Chauceropening of The Canterbury Tales

April is the cruelest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliotopening of The Waste Land

April is the cruelest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliotopening of The Waste Land

TrinidadTrinidad

A View of the Caribbean and Its Memoriesof Our Not-so-Recent Collective Past

(To Helen, whose gift of a picture of a West Indian harbour

made it possible)

A View of the Caribbean and Its Memoriesof Our Not-so-Recent Collective Past

(To Helen, whose gift of a picture of a West Indian harbour

made it possible)

History-stretched between forgotten ancestorsand cussing new world cousins,I pause to count our combined sins of bloodand our collective crimes of eternitiesby the wavelashes that shatter the calmof the mirror-surface of your sun-framed fortunesand I contemplate your holiday resorts into mosaics of silhouette slave ships that sit safe in protected harbours to await the arrival of auctioneers and cheap labour merchants shadows that cast shadows to map out your white sea breakers into the mast-sails that once floated ships which were pregnant with our ancestral limbs,

luminous dusk-glow that stays the mind on the last constants of primordial nightmares and details that accentuate details to whip our past awake into our present pains.Still, like the sea that now gives you a home and a name,I wonder if the tidal waves of your brave new worldhave whirled you beyond the bedrock of your seaand washed you past the memorial beaconsof those ancient dreams that predatorsfrom within and without our ranksconspired to discredit and freeze into museum pieces.

luminous dusk-glow that stays the mind on the last constants of primordial nightmares and details that accentuate details to whip our past awake into our present pains.Still, like the sea that now gives you a home and a name,I wonder if the tidal waves of your brave new worldhave whirled you beyond the bedrock of your seaand washed you past the memorial beaconsof those ancient dreams that predatorsfrom within and without our ranksconspired to discredit and freeze into museum pieces.