1st Edition
The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta
This book examines the depiction of the Delta region of Nigeria through literature and other cultural art forms.
The Niger Delta has been thrust into the global limelight due to resource extraction and conflict, but it is also a region with a rich culture, environment, and heritage. The creative imagination of the area’s artists has been fuelled by the area’s pressing concerns of indigenous peoples, minority discourse, environmental degradation, climate change, multinational corporations' greed, dictatorship, and people’s struggle for control of their resources. Taking a holistic approach to the Niger Delta experience, this book showcases artistic responses from literature, visual arts, and performances (such as masquerades, dances, and festivals). Chapters cover authors, artists, and performers such as Ben Okri, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Isidore Okpewho, J.P. Clark, and Bruce Onobrakpeya, as well as topics like the famous Benin bronze figures and Urhobo Udje dance.
Affirming the wealth and diversity of the region which continues to inspire creative artistic productions, The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta will be of interest to researchers of African literature, arts, and other cultural productions.
The Background
1. Introduction
Tanure Ojaide and Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega
2. Towards a Bioregional, Politico-Historical, and Sociocultural Identity of the Niger Delta
Tanure Ojaide
Oratures and Traditional Festivals
3. Form and Content of Ibibio Traditional Festivals: Ekpo, Ekpe and Mbopo
Effiok Bassey Uwatt
4. Traditional Ijo Poetry
Imomotimi Armstrong
5. The Cultural Aesthetics of Benin Traditional Festival Performances
Josephine Ebiuwa Abbe
6. Urhobo Udje: An Indigenous Satiric Genre
Tanure Ojaide
Visual Arts
7. Benin Art: Changes Through Time and Space
Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba
8. Urhobo Culture and Modernism: Configuring Mutual Reinforcements in the Art of Bruce Onobrakpeya
dele jegede
9. Art for Land and Water: Notes on Urhobo and Their Neighbors
Perkins Foss
Popular Culture
10. Cosmopolitans at One with Homeland: Niger Delta Popular Musicians from Rex Lawson and Victor Uwaifo to Omawumi and Burna Boy
Senayon Olaoluwa
11. Explorations in Pidgin Poetry from the Niger Delta
Sunny Awhefeada
12. "Warri No Dey Carry Last": The Niger Delta in Nigeria’s Stand-Up Comedy Imaginary
James Tar Tsaaior
Environmentalism
13. Environmentalism in Modern Poetry of the Niger Delta
Onyemaechi Udumukwu
14. Nature’s Animism and its Appropriation in Niger Delta Poetry
Reuben Kehinde Akano
15. Narrative Constructions of Eco-disharmony in Selected Niger Delta Novels
Saeedat Bolajoko Aliyu
Conflict Literature
16. "The perfection of chaos": Heeding the nostalgic imperative in selected works by Ben Okri
Rosemary Gray
17. From the Niger Delta’s Viewpoint: The Nigerian Civil War Literature
Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega
18. Bearing Witness: A Taxonomy of Dissent in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s Plays
Mabel I. E. Evwierhoma
19. Exploitation, Corruption and Agency in Three Niger Delta Movies
Gloria Chimeziem Ernest-Samuel
Of Writers and Personages
20. Literature, Eco-activism and the Saro-Wiwa Imaginary
Sule Emmanuel Egya
21. The Poetics of Place and the Niger Delta Minority Discourse in Festus Iyayi’s Fiction
Mathias Iroro Orhero
22. Passivity and Agency: The Dilemma of Female Characters in Works of Zulu Sofola, Buchi Emecheta, and Tess Onwueme
Asabe Usman Kabir
Biography
Tanure Ojaide is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA.
Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega is an Associate Professor of African Literature and Chair of the Department of English and Literary Studies at Delta State University, Nigeria.
