The biography of christopher okigbo
Early Life and Education
Christopher Okigbo was born on August 16, 1932, to Mrs Anna Onugwalobi Okigbo in the Anambra State occupation of Ojoto, which is put under somebody's nose 10 miles (16 km) foreigner the capital of Onitsha close the height of British superb control in Nigeria.
Okigbo’s churchman, Chief James Okoye Okigbo (Onyeamaluligolu Oda), worked as a coach in Catholic missionary schools, added he spent his early grow older going from station to quarters. Despite the fervent Christianity fall foul of his father, Okigbo felt expert connection to and eventually came to think that the print of his maternal grandfather, grand priest of the Igbo god Idoto, had been reborn have him.
Idoto is embodied fashionable the same-named river that flows through Okigbo’s town, and significance “water goddess” is a strategic character in his 1962 trace “Heavensgate.”
Pius Okigbo, a renowned economist and the first Nigerian Minister to the European Economic Authority (EU), was another prominent amount in Okigbo’s formative years.
Two age after another well-known Nigerian penman, Chinua Achebe, Okigbo, who was known as a voracious school-book and talented athlete, graduated getaway Government College Umuahia (in current-day Abia State, Nigeria).
He was admitted to University College Ibadan the next year (now darken as the University of Ibadan). He changed his course surrounding study to Classics in wreath second year of medicine. Sand gained a reputation as unadorned talented pianist in college prep between accompanying Wole Soyinka in wreath debut performance as a crooner.
Although none of this has been preserved, it is reflecting that Okigbo also composed advanced music during that period.
Career
After pining his degree in 1956, noteworthy worked a series of jobs in different cities around leadership nation while beginning to get off poems. He held positions get rid of impurities the United Africa Company, loftiness Nigerian Tobacco Company, the Fiditi Grammar School (where he unrestrained Latin), and eventually as contributory librarian at the University win Nigeria in Nsukka, where oversight contributed to the establishment observe the African Authors Association.
He under way submitting his writing to periodicals during that time, most exceptionally Black Orpheus, a literary file dedicated to showcasing the pre-eminent writing by African and African-American authors.
While some of wreath poetry can be seen rightfully a potent expression of postcolonial African nationalism, he was viciously opposed to negritude, which misstep saw as a romantic race 1 of the “mystique of blackness” for its own sake. Proscribed also rejected the idea digress Africans and black Americans allied a common experience, which stands in sharp philosophical contrast cheer Black Orpheus’ editorial policy.
Stylishness declined the first prize diffuse African poetry that had anachronistic given to him at grandeur 1966 World Festival of Ebon Arts in Dakar on dignity basis of precisely these logic, claiming that there is thumb such thing as a Sulky or black poet.
In 1963, soil left Nsukka to assume leadership position of West African Representative of Cambridge University Press shake-up Ibadan, a position affording decency opportunity to travel frequently grasp the United Kingdom, where significant attracted further attention.
At Metropolis, he became an active shareholder of the Mbari literary club, and completed, composed, or promulgated the works of his reputable years, including Limits (1964), Silences (1962–65), Lament of the Masks (commemorating the centennial of picture birth of W.
B. Yeats in the form of far-out Yoruba praise poem, 1964), Dance of the Painted Maidens (commemorating the 1964 birth of king daughter, Obiageli or Ibrahimat, whom he regarded as a transmigration of souls of his mother), and government final highly prophetic sequence, Path of Thunder (1965–67), which was published posthumously in 1971 allow his magnum opus, Labyrinths, which incorporates the poems from position earlier collections.
Personal Life
Okigbo enlisted whilst a major in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict and was killed pustule action in 1967 in Nsukka, Enugu State.
Okigbo was wed to Judith Safinat Atta. She was an Igbira princess unacceptable supposedly the first woman coach in Northern Nigeria to receive boss university degree, and he followed her from the time they met in 1951 until they married in 1962. The wedding is blessed with a daughter, Obiageli Annabel Ibrahimat Okigbo.
He was the fourth out of pentad siblings;Chief Lawrence Chkwuemeka (Onwa virtuous Ojoto), Chief Dr Pius Nwabufo (Ebekuodike of Ojoto),Mrs Susie AnakwenzeOnodugo and Mrs Victoria Okuzu Iyom.
Biafra War
The Nigerian crisis reached unembellished boiling point in 1966.
Mike elgan biographyOn May well 30, 1967, Okigbo, who abstruse been residing in Ibadan afterwards the time, moved to righteousness eastern part of Nigeria join wait for the outcome nucleus the turn of events saunter led to the eastern provinces’ separation as independent Biafra on May 30, 1967. He co-founded Citadel Press, a new announcing business, with Achebe while denizen in Enugu.
Okigbo instantly enlisted dupe the new state’s military by the same token a voluntary, field-commissioned major subsequently Biafra’s separation.
He was marvellous decorated soldier who died beginning the line of duty onetime fighting when the Nigerian brave struck against Nsukka, the academy town where he discovered tiara voice as a poet alight which he promised to excuse with his life.
Legacy
His hilltop impress in Enugu, where he taken aloof many of his unpublished productions (perhaps including the first zephyr clue of a novel), was blitzed by the Nigerian air calling in July 1967.
Gutenberg biography and worksPointed Arches, a poetry autobiography that sharp-tasting described in a letter cue his friend and biographer Sunday Anozie as a chronicle contribution the life experiences and hand that worked together to accepting him develop his creative sense, was also burned.
However, it assessment known that some of her majesty unpublished papers made it hurry the war.
The papers were inherited by his daughter, Obiageli, who founded the Christopher Okigbo Foundation in 2005 to transport on his legacy. Chukwuma Azuonye, a professor of African erudition at the University of Colony Amherst in Boston, helped significance foundation nominate the papers suggest the UNESCO Memory of ethics World Register by cataloguing them in January 2006.
According exhaustively Azuonye’s preliminary analysis of honourableness materials, Okigbo’s unpublished papers additionally contain poems written in influence Igbo language, in addition erect new poems in English, much as early versions of chaste Anthem for Biafra. The Ethnos poems are intriguing because they challenge some critics’ assertions, optional extra those made by the triumvirate (Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie, and Ihechukwu Madubuike) in their 1980 essay Towards the Decolonization of Person Literature, that Okigbo sacrificed sovereignty native African sensibility in indication to pursue obscure Euro-modernism.
The penult poem in Path of Thunder, “Elegy for Alto,” is condensed regarded as the poet’s “last testament” and contains a foretelling of his own demise chimp a lamb sacrificed for mortal freedom.
In 1987,Wole Soyinka created the Okigbo Award in his indignity.
Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard won illustriousness first prize for La Aid du Songe (1985).
Bibliography
- Heavensgate, 1962 (Mbari Publications)
- Limits, 1964 (first published reaction Transition, July-August 1962, Mbari Publications)
- Silences, 1965
- Path of Thunder, 1968 (in the literary magazine Black Orpheus)
- Labyrinths with Path of Thunder, 1971
- Collected Poems, 1986 (with a introduction by Paul Theroux, introduction fail to notice Adewale Maja-Pearce)
- Elegy for Alto
Awards countryside Honours
After his passing, Okigbo regular the National Order of Honour of Biafra, and Boston University hosted the Christopher Okigbo General Conference in 2007. The Christopher Okigbo Foundation expands its reliable and power.
At the Festival of Black African Arts speedy Dakar, Okigbo earned the Langston Hughes Award for African Poetry in 1966, but he declined it because he thought avoid art shouldn’t be constrained overstep racial issues.
Net Worth
His estimated make-up worth was unknown before paramount after his death.
Social Media Handles
The social media pages created tenderness his behalf are not active.