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Scroll down to read the article. Above: Yvonne Vera, Above right: Steve Chimombo, Standards, Right: Chejerai Hove, Far right: Bode Sowande Niyi Osundare

N the past one year I have visited several Right: Ifeoma Nigerian Universities Okoye, Far right: Syl as Special Guest, Cheney-Coker, Guest Lecturer, or re- Below: Manama Ba. cipient of creative writers' club awards. I have also taken part in literary and cre- ative outreach visits to a number of sec- ondary schools. Ev- erywhere I have encountered a feeling of frightening anxiety, exasperation, even frustration among young talents who daily nurse the hope of becoming writers in the near future. Their main source of worry is the virtual collapse of the literary culture in Nigeria: the non- availability of well-stocked public li- braries, the scarcity of books coupled with the prohibitive prices of the avail- able few, the miserable state of pub- lishing in the country with the conse- quent shortage of outlets for new books, the drastic deterioration in the educa- tional system itself. Beyond this general picture are the harrowing individual pains. Take the affecting every cell of the continent's cre- Adelugba, Segun Olusola, Femi Johnson, case of a young, prodigiously talented ative organ. Just last week there was a Paul Worika, Mat Imerion, Betty Okotie, university graduate who walked out of a passionate discussion in the Arts Theatre Funmilayo Ajose Ajayi, etc came back to well-paid job in order to devote his whole of the University of Ibadan (Nigeria's us with archival vigour We counted time and life to the writing of a new novel. oldest University theatre) on the alarming among our losses the disappearance of f After countless foodless days and sleep- reduction of theatre practices in the coun- the Yoruba Travelling Thea res which less nights, the manuscript is ready - an try: the literal death of the repertoire combed every village in Western Nige- ambitious hand-written 600-pager which tradition, the paucity of stage activities ria in the Sixties, and whose dramaturgic shakes whatever table it is put on like an and the resultant decline in the theatre- and managerial styies enriched formai earthquake. Right now this would-be going habit of members of the university academic theatre studies and provided novelist's dream is blocked by a most community, even the physical deteriora- the subject for many scholarly works. rudimentary problem: payment of a 500- tion of the theatre itself — its leaking roof naira typing expenses—in a country and decaying wooden louvres. This is the The Arts Theatre seminar took me where a university professor's basic theatre where the great Axworthy made— forcibly back to the anxieties of the monthly salary is about 4000 naira! For and left — a mark; where the redoubtable creative writing students mentioned several months now this 'big book' has Martin Banham moulded an impressive above. Like them the seminar partici- been lingering, long-hand, yellowing array of talents; indeed the theatre in pants raised questions about the suffo- each day, in the corner of a high-risk which many of the plays which shot the cating political situation in the country, tenement room in one of Nigeria's cities. mercurial Soyinka into global repute pre- especially the curtailment of human rights Our literary which has placed culture boasts freedom ol expres- more yellowing sion in dire jeop- tales. At the Asso- ardy, the proscrip- ciation of Nige- tion of truth and rian Authors' con- the cultivation of ference in Benin silence by a ruling City last year, junta so scared of another young the power of the writer stoked my word. Many of my wonder with three u nderg raduate impressive poetry and high school manuscripts hosts actually which, if all things wanted to know were not so un- why the writing equal, should vocation is so per- have been books ilously close to toasted from danger and star- bookshop to vation in Nigeria, bookshop. But Dambudzo Marechera in Africa. Many thumb-stained, wondered if it was dog-eared, these manuscripts still remain miered to the astounded admiration of viable, even desirable to nurse the hope brittle tenants of a cockroach-infested local audiences. This is the theatre which of becoming full-time writers when they box. Some young writers are so nurtured the prolific output of Femi grew up. A smallish, sharp-faced young innundated by rejection slips that their Osofisan, Bode Sowande, Wale man asked me pointedly: 'Tell me sir, can nibs have started stumbling on the writ- Ogunyemi and many others. the present situation in Nigeria, in Africa, ing sheet. Others parade acceptance produce another Soyinka or Achebe?' letters written ten years ago by publishers Nostalgia took centre-stage at that Maybe at the end of this conference an who have since shifted their concern to gathering. Nostalgia compounded by a the production of primary school text- answer will emerge to this question. passionate mix of angst and anger books where the bread is not far from the Memory took us back to that golden era butter. Thus whether it is in Lagos, Accra, I am fully aware that the contesta- of the Seventies and early Eighties when Nairobi or Lusaka, many dreams lie tion of the image of Africa as 'victim' is the gigantic Dexter Underlay mastered locked in the coffin of the editor's draw- one of the laudable projects of this confer- every bit of that theatre and Demas ence. In other words, the world would like Nwoko's astonishing skill transformed to see a representation different from that virtually every stage set into artistic mas- Arts Theatre Seminar which projects Africa as the misery-re- terpieces. We pondered the parlous state gion of the globe, a place where all the This tragedy is not in any way of the present even as the matchless people do is wait helplessly for the next restricted to the book business. It is a virus acting and directorial voices of Dapo famine or plague, then the missionary

African Quarterly on the Arts Vol. II NO 4 generosity of aid-givers, a hell-hole still the only book fair of any regularity and urgent service. Theirs, to adapt the popu- Conradianly dark. This, for sure, is the significance in the entire continent today lar pnrase of G.G. Darah, the Nigerian Western media image of Africa. We all is the one which takes place in Zimba- scholar-journalist, is the literature of social know it is not wholly true; that, in fact, in bwe? In contemporary Africa those who command, extremely sensitive to the so- some cases, it is meant to serve ulterior want to write are denied the necessary cial realities around them, but without motives, some of which are sinister in space and means; those willing to read losing sight of the aesthetic imperatives of design and execution. But in contesting cannot find the book. This is why in a their works. Thus this generation shocked this pernicious image we must not over- recent article poignantly titled literature African literature with a combativeness look the profound, almost apocalyptic and the Nation', Odia Ofeimun, poet, and radicalism never experienced be- problems besetting the African continent journalist, and current president of the fore. The thematic preoccupation remains today. Africa writers have not; which is Association of Nigerian Authors, raised the desperate situation of Africa, the stylis- why their works bristle with disturbing the alarm that our literature is being tic hallmarks are clarity and directness of images of Africa in a manner and matter 'threatened with extinction by social expression, formal experimentation, and that is excoriative and redemptive. Ac- regression.'? a deliberate incorporation of African oral cording to a popular Yoruba proverb, literary modes. 'tina o ba tan laso, eje o le tan leekan' (as The above, then, constitute the con- Frank Chipasula says it all in 'Mani- long as there are lice in the seams of the text which produces our texts. But rather festo on Ars Poetica': garment there must be bloodstains on the than allow these debacles to cow us into And I will distil life into horrible adjec fingernails). sterility and immobilism, many African tives writers have allowed them to 'hurt them I will notclean the poem to impress the 3 For isn't Africa more 'victim' today into creativity'. Because they occupy (or tyrant; than it was ten, twenty years ago? Con- are forced to occupy) a social and histori- I will not bend my verses into the bow sider the carnage in Rwanda, Somali, cal space considerably different from of a praise song Liberia; the rebellion-strained peace of that of the early Soyinka, Achebe and Sierra Leone, the Stone-Age despotism in their contemporaries, the 'post Achebe/ And I will point the light of my poems Zaire, Kenya, — and Nigeria where the Soyinka' generation have devised liter- into the dark peace and progress of a potentially mag- ary methods which differ in some signifi- Nooks where our people are pounded nificent country has been annulled with cant aspects from those of the earlier to pulp the freest and fairest election in her his- generation. There are historical and bio- tory. Or Algeria where an almost similar graphical reasons for this difference. Today my poetry has exacted a con electoral annulment has resulted in con- Born shortly before or after the rash of fession from me. tinual insecurity and bloodshed. We are independence (from hindsight'epidemic' [Whispers in the Wing, p. 108) talking of a continent currently going would now be a better word!) which through a second slavery, whose best swept across Africa in the early Sixties, Indeed poetry has exacted equally brains are in one form of exile or another, they arrived with the exuberant optimism bold confessions from many other poets some of whose doctors and engineers are of freedom and matured into the immea- of Chipasula's generation. Odia Ofeimun forced to eke out a miserable existence as surable decay of the post-independence declares: street-sweepers, morgue-attendants, or era. They witnessed the dream of the 'just I cannot blind myself jamtors in Europe and America. Can we and egalitarian' society enshrined in the to putrefying carcases in the market really ignore, even for one oblivious mo- independence constitution transmogrify place ment, the'victimhood'of a continent whose into nightmares of visionless leadership, pulling giant vultures economy is under complete control of the most bestial form of corruption, glar- from the sky foreign financiers, whose currencies have ing socio-economic injustice, and utter and rounds off the poem on a deliberate, been so cruelly devalued that all they can lawlessness — all this husbanded and instructive note: purchase now are chronic poverty and nurtured by visionless, despotic leaders' A garland of subversive litanies untameable inflation? To take a test case: who soon decreed themselves into life should answer these morbid land the imported hard-cover edition of Ibadan, presidents. After a few years of civilian scapes Soyinka's new book, costs over 2,000 misrule, in marched the stone-faced sol- my land, my woman naira (about the monthly salary of a dier. Then began what the immortal Chris- [The Poet Lied, p. 3) universitygraduote worker) in someofthe topher Okigbo called our 'iron' chapter, few Nigerian bookstores, viable enough and Wole Soyinka later baptised as the Examining the matter and manner to have it on their shelves. Home-made divine rule of the gun. of contemporary African writing in the books fare only a little better . The cost of vein of the excerpts above, the present publishing materials has jumped so astro- Texts and Contexts writer reflects: nomically that even the big-league pub- The 'post-Achebe/Soyinka' gen- the simple word lishers are finding it difficult to produce eration is thus confronted with frighten- elementary textbooks and other 'bread- is the shortest distance ing realities which challenged their con- and-butter' titles. Any wonder then that between two minds science and summoned their art into

African Quarterly on the Arts VoLlI NO 4 There is no petname for amphitude of vision — these are some of the common attributes injustice of the poets highlighted above. To them must be added the poverty pensive, colloquial energy of the poetry of Jack Mapanje, Funso has no bank for nicknames AiyejinaJaredAngira, and Harry Garuba; the nostalgic afflatus [A Nib in the Pond, p.9) of Lupenga Mphande, Edison Mpina, Steve Chimombo, and before going on to a somewhat aphoristic coda: Molara Ogundipe-Leslie whose fluent verse 'sew(s) the old days' Art shorn of the human touch into new seasons. is art for ass sake (A Nib, p.6) As we have seen above, most of the poets of the 'new generation' articulate a clear consciousness of the place of the Syl Cheney-Coker who indicts 'the Creole ugliness' of poet and the gravity of the functions of poetry in a tone and with Sierra Leone and highlights the brutality of her 'Portuguese a vehemence hardly experienced in the earlier generation. This Conquistadors', is why a good number of them preface their collections with practise(s) the art of poetry poetic manifestoes which enunciate a new poetics that is because all my country's misery rises up from my belly aesthetically and socially answerable. [The Graveyard Also Has Teeth, p.65) while Keorapetse Kgositsile, even in the dark days of apartheid But the image and function of the writer as griot and made a visionary proclamation that raconteur are by no means the sole char- 'change is gonna come!', because in the acteristics of practitioners of the poetry lyrical words of Kofi Anyidoho, genre. Indeed many of the dramatists of ... those who took away our Voice the 'new generation' tell Africa's story in Are now surprised costume, sound, mime and movement in a They couldn't take away our Song manner whose physical representation (Ancestrallogic, p.23) forcibly engage the consciousness. There is a radical, even revolutionary project Still 'troubador' in the Dennis Brutus here too, a robust belief that the theatre is sense of the word, the new generation not just a house of speeches and props, poets also admonish and warn. In the but also a battleground for contending prodigal days of Nigeria's 'oil boom', images and ideas. when her military ruler declared to the world at large that money was not Wole Soyinka remains an enor- Nigeria's problem but how to spend it, mousand highly seminal influence. But for Tanure Ojaide foresaw the doom behind the generation after him he has been both the boom: a venerable model and fertile point of Oil boasts: 'For ever and ever departure. Thus is many ways the relation- Shall I remain on top of the water' ship of the 'new' generation to Soyinka's It shall come, rock salt shall come dramaturgy has been somewhat problem- To beat oil into profound loss atic. [Children of Iroko, p.36) Mongane Wally Serote Because of 'the quantum physics of exis- Of supreme importance to this re- tential inequality' (Atukwei Okai p. 1 3) in definition of relationship is the 1977 the world we live in, we find in the poets a threnodic mix of pain, workshop on 'Radical Perspectives in Af- passion, and patriotism In a stubbornly declarative poem ' I am rican Literature and Society' organised by brilliant left-wing Bound to This Land by Blood', Olu Oguibe, a 'newer' member lecturers, writers, and critics of the Universities of Ife and Ibadan. of the 'new generation' of African writers tells us In a manner reminiscent of such radical efforts in East Africa in the Seventies — efforts which resulted in a substantial And if I sing not of roses and rivers decolonialisation of African literature and the establishment of It's because I see rivers of blood oral literature as a legitimate area of study — the Ibadan [A Gathering Fear, p. 1 2) conference de-mystified old gods, challenged sacrosanct can- ons, and laid out new parameters for the re-appraisal of African then goes on to make a chilling confession: literatures, history, and cultures. In a clearly anti-Aristotelean, My verse spreads ungathered anti-'Great Tradition' fervour, the workshop proposed a shift of In this spill of purple emphasis from obscurantist, Negritudinist myths to the biting Mine is the cry of a ram tethered urgency ofcontemporary social issues as fitting subject of literary To the slaughterslab discourse. A change in the writer's conception of the hero was libid,) p. 13) also examined: the gods, goddesses, kings and nobles who populated the African stage were asked to yield place to the Anger, angst, lulls of despair, bursts of hope, a frequent common woman and man - the real makers of history.

African Quarterly on the Arts Vol. 11 NO 4 The ripples generated by this work- times in the hit-and-run guerrilla platform Carlos Fuentes Well, that was before shop have been far-reaching. This is in the streets of Samaru or He Ife (in Salman Rushdie gave it an Oriental habi- evident in the dramatic output of Ola Nigeria), or the community-based the- tation and Toni Morrison demonstrated to Rotimi who moved from the royal heights atres in Zimbabwe, Cameroon, South the world that 'conjuring' among "African of Kurunmi and The .Gods Are Not to African and the state-destroyed experi- story-tellers came before Columbus. The Blame (itself his adaptation of Oedipus ment in KamiririithubyNgugi waThiong'o. two most prominent practitioners of that Rex to the pungent satirical indictment of genre in Africa today are Ben Okri (The If and Hopes of the Living Dead. Continuities Famished Road, Songs of Enchantment, Prominent in all the dramas in this and Astonishing the Godsjand Syl Cheney- Perhaps the most prolific dramatist section are new theatrical forms and Coker (The Last Harmattan of Alusine of the 'post-Soyinka' era ( in Nigeria, at modes. For example, the Brechtian epic Dunbarj. Both novelists (especially the least] is Femi Osofisan (who like Biodun theatre and its alienation technique are former) of course, owe more than they are Jeyifo, the brilliant literary theorist and vital aspects of Osofisan's theatre. The ready to confess to the fabulist pioneership critic, was one of the moving forces of the traditional story-teller technique features of D. O Fagunwa and the primitive imagi- Radical Perspectives workshop). In play frequently in the drama of Penina Mlama, nation of Amos Tutuola. after play, Osofisan confronts the Nige- Zulu Sofola, and Olu Obafemi, while at rian society with the social and cultural times ideas compete with plot and charac- It must be said, however, that Okri horrors of its existence: social injustice in terization in Yulisa Amadu Maddy. In Biyi and Cheney-Coker are not mere imitators Once Upon Four Robbers and Bandele-Thomasneo-Absurdist echoes are of magical realism: the former's magical Morountodun, the question of power in energised by post-modernist trends. terrain is populated by ghosts and weird Yungba Yungba, the need for compas- beings (which bring Soyinka's A Dance of sion in Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels, Like Soyinka's, Achebe's succes- the Forests powerfully to mind), while the and of recent, the pan-Africanist issue in sors are many and varied. Without failing latter's yarn is stretched by a liberal web of Nkrumah Ni, Africa Ni. Two of his plays to acknowledge the urbane wisdom and myth and history. are even direct responses or counter-texts quiet craftsmanship of the author of Things to those of the earlier tradition: No More 'Fall Apart, they have taken African prose And in this regard it shares the same the Wasted Breed counters the cyclical fiction beyond the village square to the borders with novels of mythic realism. pessimism of Soyinka's The Strong Breed, turbulent streets of the city where things Here Yvonne Vera's Nehanda provides while Another Raft is a rejoinder to The are truly no longer at ease. Almost invari- an eloquent example. The heroine Raft by J. P. Clark-Bekederemo. ably the subject matter is the political Nehanda is not only a widely known chaos in post-independence Africa, but historical figure; she is here portrayed as In the 'new generation' drama, his- the styles range from the formal, poetic a medium, prophetess, visionary, and lib- tory re-connects with mythology and a re- mode of Nuruddin Farah, Cheney-Coker, eration fighter. In this novel historical truth interpretation of both yields a reality which Chenjera Hove and Yvonne Vera, to the is constructed through mythic fabulation provides a handle on the present — and colloquial tenor of Dambuzo Marechera and literary mediation. The history of Zim- the future. Ibrahim Hussein's Kinjeketile and Ken Saro Wiwa who strains no nerve babwe, from white occupation to black hints on the tenuousness of social struggle in telling an exhilarating story in 'rotten liberation struggle is endowed with a new premised on mythic ontology, while in the English'. Significantly, this is also the reality justasChenjerai Hove's Bones tells Tornadoes Full of Dreams, BodeSowande genre that has produced the largest num- the post-liberation story through his dusk- provides a diasporic canvas of origins, ber of female writers. So, in a way, we like characterization and ruptured narra- migrations, and troubled habitations. In a also have a right to talk about the 'post- tive chronology, and Shimmer Chinodya's somewhat existentialist flash-back of Nwapa/Ba/Gordimer/Saadawi/Head/ Harvest of Thorns covers three decades of memory and consciousness, Tess Sutherland/Segun/Aidoo generation'! Zimbabwean family life in the intimate Onwueme tells us in Legacies that the past context of the history, politics, and culture may not really be as rosy as it has been Generally the thematic and stylistic of that period. made to be. trends in contemporary African prose fic- tion can be put under four broad and Most of the novelists of the new Whether it is the myth-inspired The interrelated categories: marvellous or generation tackle reality head on with as Lake God by Bole Butake, or the subtle magical realism, mythic realism, critical much mediation as their art allows. The parabolic criticism of Tanzanian social- realism, and a new burgeoning prose issues of social injustice, corruption, unem- ism by Penina Muhando Mlama, or the sub-genre called 'faction'. ployment, cultural alienation, gender op- indictment of political blindness by Sam pression and other vices which make Af- Ukala's The Log in Your Eye, contempo- Time there was when magical real- rica such a hellish continent loom large in rary African theatre engages in a vibrant ism was considered to be indigenous to narratives of this category. We are pre- debate on the social, cultural and political Latin America, its progenitor being the sented with familiar places and issues of the day. The argument takes phenomenal Gabriel Marcial Marquez, recognisable faces. In Festus lyayi critical place most times in the formal theatre with who has found worthy heirs and heiresses realism is boosted by socialist realism seated ladies and gentlemen, and some- in prodigies like Isabella Allende and (Violence, Contract, Heroes); and so con-

African Quarfrrly on the Arts Vol. II NO 4 sistently, the author presents the aspira- the setting looks so palpably real, in others tation marks. This is because I am utterly tions and frustration of the 'small person' it assumes the mystic suggestiveness of a sceptical about the 'post' which has now in a society dominated by cannibalistic tale told before the world began. become so fashiortable a tag in contem- 'giants' — in a tone and tenor which porary discourse (as i have said eise- bears a slight resemblance to the effort of It is interesting to note that the fac- where, the post' in 'post-coionial' is a Meja Nwagi (Down River Road). Like tion genre is no respecter of generational vicious lie). Both Achebe and Soyinka are Chinodya, Isidore Okpewho depicts the divides. There are striking stylistic and still very much around — and creating. vital link between domestic and public narrative similarities between Omotoso's Even in the literary republic, it is still a spheres in times of war or peace. Just Before Dawn and Soyinka'a Ake, crimirfal sin to bury the living! So whatthis Isara, and Ibadan. The major difference is essay has done is to highlight some of the Without doubt, this category is that the organising principle of Soyinka's thematic and stylistic developments which dominated by female writers determined narratives is auto-biographical, that of have taken place in African literature to articulate the realities of the African Omotoso is somewhat more impersonal. because of, in spite of, or beyond these woman long silenced and 'othered' by a In the end both authors are engaged in an two profound trail-blazers. Mine, there- ruthlessly patriarchal system. In the works experimental representation of the biog- fore, is an account of continuities and of Miriam Tlali [Muriel at the Metropoli- raphy of a country. In a way, faction may ruptures. tan, etc) Nawal el Saadawi (The Many do to African writing what it has done to Faces of Eve) Ifeoma Okoye (Men With- But one thing is sure: out Ears), Tsitsi Dagarembga {Nervous the period in which Achebe Condition), Zainab Alkali (The Stillborn), and Soyinka launched them- Karen King-Aribisala (Our WifeandOther selves on to the literary scene Stories), Omowunmi Segun (The Third is saner and kinder than the Dimple), Rebeccca Njau (Ripples in the one in which their succes- Blood) and many, many others, the sors are presently trapped. woman gains a pride of place that was Whereas their works re- hardly dreamt of in the narrative universe ceived enthusiastic attention of the Achebes and Soyinkas (with the from publishers and were significant exception of Sembene distributed all over the world, Ousmane and Ngugi wa Thiong'o). But overseas publishers now see this restoration is not an exclusive female African literature as a bad affair: the narrative world of Nuruddin risk, while local ones only Farah, for example hasa place for women manage to bring out a few who are capable of feeling, thinking, and titles over a long period. acting. African literature today is thus in a painfully illiterate bind: books published by It can be confidently said' that in Africans abroad are not contemporary Africa, the dividing line available even in their home between fact and fiction in perilously countries due to thin. Dreams and nightmares swap places unfavourable currency ex- with such amazing ease that one is change rates, while the few tempted to think that the entire continent published in Africa are not is one surrealist text with a few interludes available beyond their im- of actuality. This situation has given rise mediate locality. To make to a prose sub-genre that can be de- matters worse, those jour- scribed as 'faction' (fact + fiction). As far Nurudeen Farah nals and magazines which as I know, the most intriguing instance of provided vibrant literary out- this sub-genre is Kole Omotoso's Just lets in the Sixties and Seven- Before Dawn, a book which provides an ties are either now extinct or going through encyclopaedic excursion through the 'new journalism'. One only hopes protracted dormancy. The bookshops are Nigeria's history in a style which takes that it would succeed is pushing forward empty. This is why in a recent article liberty with historical factuality. Historical the frontiers of African fictive mode with- frighteninglytitled 'When Ugandan Pens events often transform into fiction-like out allowing the liberty gained in the Could Write No More', Ayeta Anne episodes, historical figures take on the process to degenerate into narrative li- Wangusa declared: garb or novelistic characters, old, long- cence. forgotten speeches are re-cast as fresh Walk into the Makerere University dialogues, and, of course, the plot shifts It will be noticed that throughout Bookshop - it's a joke. One can ride and shunts to the dictates of the author/ this essay, I have included the phrase a motor cycle into it and ride out narrator's imagination. In some places 'post-Achebe/Soyinka' in cautious quo- without casualties

African Quarterly on the Arts Vol. II NO 4 Wangusa's statement holds true for Notes bookshops in other countries south of the 2AM News (Sunday Edition), July 30, 1995, p. 9 Sahara except, perhaps, Zimbabwe and 3. Ofeimun, p.9 South Africa. 4. 'Path of Thunder', in Labyrinth, Heinemann 1971 pp. 63-72 These, then are the states of African 5. Niyi Osundare (1993), African Literature and the Crisis of Post-Structuralist literature today. But people are still writ- Theorising, Ibadan: Options Book & Information Services See also by the same ing, creative writing classes, literary asso- author (1995) ' A Wondrous Healing Vision: an Essay Around Kenzaburo Oe's ciations, newspaper and magazine col- 'Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself, Seminar paper, Dept. of English, University umns and many others are bent on giving of Ibadan, Nigeria. credence to Wally Serote's credo that we 6. In African Literature Association Bulletin, vol. 20, No. 2, Spring 1994, p.69 'are not the lost generation'. And as (Primary sources: Only those from which direct quotes have been taken) — Ogechi Iromantu has prophesied in her newcollection, we may one day reach the 7. Anyidoho, K., (1993) Ancestrallogic & Caribbeanblues, Trenton New Jersey: state where there will be Africa World Press. No more screaming. No more crying 8. Cheney-Coker, S. (1980), The Graveyard Also Has Teeth, Heinemman no more lies to cover the wounds of 9. Chipasula, F. (1991), Whispers in the Wings, Heinemann sadness and grief, 10.Iromantu, O. (1995) Outpouring of Innocence, Lagos: Pulse Marketing no more unforgettable pain Communications Ltd. this is the world intended from the 1 1. Kgositsile, K. (1971) Seven South African Poets ed. Cosmo Pieterse, beginning Heinemann. I see peace in the land for all 12. Ofeimun, O. (1989), The Poet Lied, Lagos: Update Communications [Outpouring of Innocence, p.3) Ms. Ogechi Iromantu is 14 years old. GR 13. Oguibe, O. (1992), A Gathering Fear, Ibadan: Kraft Book Ltd 14. Ojaide, T. (1973), Children oflroko, New York: The Greenfield Review press • Text was presented at the School 15. Okai, a (1974), Lorgorligi Logarithms, Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation of Oriental and African Studies, 16. Osundare, N. (1986), A Nib in the Pond, lle-lfe: University oflfe Monography London, during the Royal African Series. Society conference late last year. 17. Serote, W. (1992), Third World Express. Cape Town: David philip Publishers Ltd.

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