Abioseh Nicol
(1924–1994)
Abioseh Nicol was born in Sierra Leone, a small country in western Africa. He was educated in Sierra Leone and Nigeria and later at Cambridge University in England, where he did research in biochemistry.
Nicol’s stories, poems, and articles have appeared in a number of publications, and in 1952 he received the Margaret Wrong Prize and Medal for Literature in Africa. Nicol’s prose style is very much in the English manner, but his stories are robust and show a sharp sense of the dramatic and ironic. In the introduction to a collection of his stories, he states that he decided to write about his own people to give them nobility.
His poems and stories are usually set in rural villages, where he felt the true heart and spirit of Africa survive. In "Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu," the real Africa is found in the indomitable, life-affirming character of the old woman, Bola.
Chinua Achebe
(1930– )
Chinua Achebe was born and raised in the traditional Ibo village of Ogidi when Nigeria was still a British colony. Much of Achebe's work draws on his childhood experiences in this village, the ancestral home of his father.
During his five years at the University of Ibaden, Achebe began to question the colonial-era notion that African culture was inferior to European culture. He knew that Africans had their own stories to tell and for that reason began writing short stories with an African focus. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), won international acclaim, opening many Westerners' eyes to the cultural heritage of Africa and to the destructive effects of colonial rule on individual Africans. His novels focus on life in Nigeria—sometimes presented as a fictionalized nation—from the arrival of early English missionaries, through years of colonial rule, to a post-independence era rife with corruption and political turmoil.
In 1967, civil war erupted in Nigeria when the Ibo attempted to secede and form a new republic called Biafra. The Biafran cause ultimately failed, and by the time the war ended in 1970, several million people had died, many of them starving in refugee camps. Several of the stories in Achebe's collection Girls at War (1972) reflect events of the war years and their aftermath.
Wole Soyinka
(1934– )
Wole Soyinka is one of Africa’s greatest writers. He is known primarily for his drama, but he has also written poetry, novels, essays, and autobiographies.
Abeokuta, Soyinka’s birthplace, is one of six western provinces inhabited by the Yoruba people, the largest tribal group in Nigeria. Soyinka’s parents were Christian converts who raised their children on a missionary compound; nevertheless, the Yoruba culture that thrived just beyond the compound walls had a profound influence on their son Wole’s imagination.
Wole Soyinka attended universities in Ibadan and Lagos in Nigeria. He then went to Leeds University in England, where he earned a degree with honors in 1959. He became involved with theatrical productions while he was a student. After graduation, he taught for a while in London and worked for the Royal Court Theatre, where one of his plays was produced in 1958. Two early plays, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel, were staged at the Ibadan Arts Theater in 1959. In 1960, his verse play, A Dance in the Forests, was produced to celebrate Nigerian independence.
Until his arrest and detention during the Nigerian civil war (1967–1970), Soyinka actively promoted the development of drama combining Yoruba mythology, Christian Bible stories, and Greek and Roman legends. Since his release from prison, Soyinka’s writings reflect his deep concern for modern Nigerian society; specifically, how valuable aspects of traditional life can coexist with Westernization. This theme is prominent in Aké: The Years of Childhood (1981), an autobiography dealing with Soyinka’s early years in the village of Aké. Soyinka tells how he was influenced by both Yoruban and European cultures.
As an editor of modern African poetry anthologies, Soyinka has been instrumental in introducing American and European audiences to African literature. In 1986, Soyinka became the first black African to receive the Nobel Prize in literature for his outstanding achievements.
Nadine Gordimer
(1923– )
Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, a small town near Johannesburg, on the gold-mining ridge that has yielded much of South Africa’s wealth. Gordimer grew up in a middle-class family in a repressive colonial society that imitated European conventions and values. She has said that she spent a great deal of her childhood reading because the atmosphere was so dull.
At the age of nine, Gordimer was taken out of school for a time because she was considered too sick to attend. It was then that she started writing. At fifteen she published her first story in a Johannesburg weekly journal. Her first internationally published short-story collection, The Soft Voice of the Serpent, appeared in 1952.
The characters in Gordimer’s stories and novels are shaped in part by apartheid, South Africa’s harshly maintained separation of races. For over forty years, Gordimer’s fiction was a quiet but insistent force in the struggle against apartheid.
Perhaps one of Gordimer’s greatest achievements is her ability to treat South Africa’s problems from a literary rather than a political perspective. Gordimer once explained that she doesn’t understand politics except as it affects people’s lives.
Although Gordimer is respected around the world, she was a thorn in the side of her own country’s government when apartheid was still in effect. Three of her novels were banned in South Africa. Nevertheless, Gordimer has always considered herself an "intensely loyal" South African. She claims that her love of South Africa is what has kept her there.
Derek Walcott
(1930– )
For his mastery in language in both poetry and prose, Derek Walcott is regarded as the finest Caribbean poet writing in English and one of the leading English-language poets of the twentieth century. In 1992, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
Walcott was born on St. Lucia, a Caribbean island noted for its lush green valleys, vast banana plantations, and sleeping volcano. Although St. Lucia was a British colony when Walcott was a child and its official language was English, most people spoke patois, a mixture of French, English, and Caribbean dialect. Walcott learned English as a second language and quickly mastered its subtleties.
Despite his deep roots in Caribbean culture, Walcott, who is of mixed African and European descent, felt he did not quite fit in. Perhaps this is why he often writes about loneliness and isolation.
Walcott started writing seriously when he was in his early teens and published his first poem when he was fourteen years old. His first book of poetry, Twenty-five Poems, appeared four years later, in 1948. Since no professional publisher was willing to underwrite the project, Walcott’s mother, a teacher, paid for publication, although she could ill afford the expense. Walcott paid her back by peddling copies of the book himself. At twenty, Walcott had his first play, Henry Christophe (1950), produced. That same year, he left St. Lucia on a scholarship to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.
Walcott’s Nobel Prize was won in large part because of his Greek-style epic poem called Omeros (1990). The characters in Omeros are ordinary Caribbean women and fishermen who have names like Helen, Achille, and Hector—the names of characters in Homer’s great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. (Omeros is the Greek word for Homer.) Walcott doesn’t think it unusual to set his narrative poem within the framework of these ancient epics. He says that in St. Lucia he grew up surrounded by the sea, just as Homer was surrounded by the Aegean, and that in Omeros he gathered together stories of the Caribbean "tribe," just as Homer tied together old stories from the Aegean world. To Walcott, his epic poem is a long thank-you to the island people from which he came.
Walcott spends much of his time in the United States where he has taught creative writing at some of America’s top colleges. He maintains his strong roots in the Caribbean and has a permanent home in Trinidad.
Bessie Head
(1937–1986)
Although much of her work grew out of her own painful experiences with a separatist society, Bessie Head is regarded as a writer whose work is ultimately inclusive and affirming. Born in South Africa, Head experienced firsthand the rigid classification system of apartheid. She was considered "Coloured" (part black, part white) and was denied full citizenship. Because she felt she didn't belong in South Africa, she immigrated to the neighboring nation of Botswana, which she came to regard as her home.
Head gained popularity as a writer in Botswana, drawing increasingly on her own experiences in her fiction. Her three novels present differing perspectives on the theme of exile and identity. Her most overtly autobiographical novel, A Question of Power (1973), tells about the desperate struggle of a woman of mixed racial background who battles a racist society and sexist culture in addition to her own private demons.
Head also published short stories and historical chronicles that incorporated regional folklore into their narratives. She once explained that she begins her stories for herself but finishes them with universal truths that can be shared by everyone.
Naguib Mahfouz
(1911– )
Naguib Mahfouz was born around 1911 in the Gamaliyya quarter of Cairo, Egypt, which later became a favorite setting for many of his works. He is referred to as "Al-Sabir" or "the patient one" by his friends, because he labored in obscurity for many years.
Mahfouz had many interests as a teenager. He liked to read Egyptian detective novels, go to movies, play soccer, listen to music, and visit friends. Still, he was dedicated to his studies and worked very hard.
Mahfouz attended the University of Cairo. Later, he worked in the Ministry of Religious Affairs for fifteen years until he transferred to a post in the Arts Administration. During these years he continued to write fiction and successful screenplays. The breakthrough in his career came in 1956 with the publication of Between the Two Palaces, which is now the most famous novel in the Arabic language. Since his retirement in 1972, Mahfouz has written prolifically; however, he was not recognized internationally until 1988 when he received the Nobel Prize in literature. Since then, many of his works have been translated into English.
Yehuda Amichai
(1924–2000)
Yehuda Amichai was born in Germany in 1924. As the Nazis came into power, Amichai’s family emigrated to Palestine. They lived in Petach Tikvah, a farming and industrial center east of Tel Aviv, before they finally settled in Jerusalem.
During World War II, Amichai joined the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, and in the War of Independence for Israel, he supported the Israeli efforts as a commando with the Haganah underground. In 1956 and 1973, Amichai again served in the Israeli army. Many of his poems and stories reflect his war experiences. For example, in the poem "Tel Gath," he expresses regrets for his actions and inactions during war, and his first novel tells of a young Jewish man struggling to understand the horrors of the Holocaust.
After Israel’s independence, Amichai attended Hebrew University where he studied traditional Hebrew literature, and gained a solid background in Hebrew and biblical texts. Amichai later combined classical Hebrew with colloquial speech in his poetry, creating a new and revolutionary poetic form. Amichai's goal was to express the experiences of contemporary Israelis while maintaining pride in the Hebrew language.
Amichai died in September 2000, but his poetry continues to be a source of patriotism and pride for Israel. His poem "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children" was recited as part of Yitzhak Rabin’s acceptance for the Nobel Peace Prize. According to one critic, when Israeli soldiers pack to go to war, they are sure to pack a copy of Yehuda Amichai’s poetry.
Vénus Khoury-Ghata
(1937– )
Vénus Khoury-Ghata was born near Beirut in Lebanon. Her mother was a nurse, and her father was an officer in the Lebanese army. Khoury-Ghata’s father was an unhappy man who controlled his family with an iron fist. He forbade his children from playing after school, bringing home friends, and speaking Arabic. When Khoury-Ghata won the Miss Lebanon beauty contest as a teenager, her father beat her.
Although Khoury-Ghata's life in Beirut was very unhappy, her summers were quite the opposite. Every summer, Khoury-Ghata, her mother, and her brother visited her mother’s village. Pshery was a refuge where Khoury-Ghata and her brother were free to play, climb trees, and enjoy nature. The village remains an important part of Khoury-Ghata’s life and work. The setting and characters in many of her books come directly from the enjoyable memories of her childhood.
Khoury-Ghata began writing poetry in French when she was fifteen, but she kept her poems private until she was twenty-one when she met Saidak, a famous poet, who asked to read her work. After reading her poetry, Saidak sent the poems to an editor who had them published. A short time later, Khoury-Ghata’s first book of poetry was published and won a prestigious award. Since then, Khoury-Ghata has published twelve books of poetry and numerous novels.
Today, Vénus Khoury-Ghata lives in Paris, but she frequently visits Lebanon to attend conferences, to read her poetry, or to sign books. Her award-winning work has been translated into Arabic, Dutch, English, Italian, and Russian.
