Achebe and Friends at Umuahia

The Making of a Literary Elite

Terri Ochiagha

• Publisher: James Currey
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780852555453, 9781847011626
• eBook ISBN: 9781782044659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: History of Education
• Index: Literature

This is the first in-depth scholarly study of the literary awakening of the young intellectuals who became known as Nigeria's "first-generation" writers in the post-colonial period. Terri Ochiagha's research focuses on Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike, and also discusses the experiences of Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa and I.C. Aniebo, in the context of their education in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at Government College, Umuahia. The author provides fresh perspectives on Postcolonial and World literary processes, colonial education in British Africa, literary representations of colonialism and Chinua Achebe's seminal position in African literature. She demonstrates how each of the writers used this very particular education to shape their own visions of the world in which they operated and examines the implications that this had for African literature as a whole. Supplementary material is available online of some of the original sources. See: http://boybrew.co/9781847011091_2 Terri Ochiagha holds one of the prestigious British Academy Newton International Fellowships (2014-16) hosted by the School of English, University of Sussex. She was previously a Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, University of Oxford.

Table of contents

• Frontcover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Umuahian Connection
• 1 Laying the Foundation: The Fisher Days, 1929–1939
• 2 ‘The Eton of The East’: William Simpson and the Umuahian Renaissance
• 3 Studying the Humanities at Government College, Umuahia
• 4 Young Political Renegades: Nationalist Undercurrents at Government College, Umuahia, 1944–1945
• 5 ‘Something New in Ourselves’: First Literary Aspirations
• 6 The Dangerous Potency of the Crossroads: Colonial Mimicry in Ike, Momah and Okigbo’s Reimagining of the Primus Inter Pares Years
• 7 An Uncertain Legacy: I.N.C. Aniebo and Ken Saro-Wiwa in the Umuahia of the 1950s
• 8 The Will to Shine as One: Affiliation and Friendship beyond the College Walls
• Works Cited
• Appendix 1: The Shining Ones: A Bibliography
• Appendix 2: List of Supplementary Material and Sources available online
• Index