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Writing the Nigeria-Biafra War
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Edited by:
Toyin Falola
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With contributions by:
Adetayo Alabi
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2016
About this book
Examines key contemporary accounts of the civil war and a range of subsequent texts to reveal the ideas behind the conflict and how these frame the understandings of what took place and what it means for contemporary Nigeria.
The Nigeria-Biafra War lasted from 6 July 1966 to 15 January 1970, during which time the post-colonial Nigerian state fought to bring the South-Eastern region, which had seceded as the State or Republic of Biafra, back into the newly independent but ideologically divided nation. This volume discusses the trends and methodologies in the civil war writings, both fictional and non-fictional, and is the first to analyse in detail the intellectual and historical circumstances that helped to shape these often contentious texts.
The recent high-profile fictional account by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun was preceded by works by Ken Saro-Wiwa, Elechi Amadi, Kole Omotoso, Wole Soyinka, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Chukwuemeka Ike and Chris Abani, all of which strongly convey the horrific human cost of the war on individuals and their communities. The non-fictional accounts, including Chinua Achebe's last work There Was a Country, are biographies, personal accounts and essays on the causes and course of the war, its humanitarian crises and the collaboration of foreign nations. The contributors examine writers' and protagonists' use of contemporary published texts as a means of continued resistance and justification of the war, the problems of objectivity encountered in memoirs, and how authors' backgrounds and sources determine thekinds of biases that influenced their interpretations, including the gendered divisions in Nigeria-Biafra War scholarship and sources. By initiating a dialogue on the civil war literature, this volume engages a much-needed discourse on the problems confronting a culturally diverse post-war Nigeria.
Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University ofTexas at Austin; Ogechukwu Ezekwem is a PhD student in the Department of History, University of Texas at Austin.
The Nigeria-Biafra War lasted from 6 July 1966 to 15 January 1970, during which time the post-colonial Nigerian state fought to bring the South-Eastern region, which had seceded as the State or Republic of Biafra, back into the newly independent but ideologically divided nation. This volume discusses the trends and methodologies in the civil war writings, both fictional and non-fictional, and is the first to analyse in detail the intellectual and historical circumstances that helped to shape these often contentious texts.
The recent high-profile fictional account by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun was preceded by works by Ken Saro-Wiwa, Elechi Amadi, Kole Omotoso, Wole Soyinka, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Chukwuemeka Ike and Chris Abani, all of which strongly convey the horrific human cost of the war on individuals and their communities. The non-fictional accounts, including Chinua Achebe's last work There Was a Country, are biographies, personal accounts and essays on the causes and course of the war, its humanitarian crises and the collaboration of foreign nations. The contributors examine writers' and protagonists' use of contemporary published texts as a means of continued resistance and justification of the war, the problems of objectivity encountered in memoirs, and how authors' backgrounds and sources determine thekinds of biases that influenced their interpretations, including the gendered divisions in Nigeria-Biafra War scholarship and sources. By initiating a dialogue on the civil war literature, this volume engages a much-needed discourse on the problems confronting a culturally diverse post-war Nigeria.
Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University ofTexas at Austin; Ogechukwu Ezekwem is a PhD student in the Department of History, University of Texas at Austin.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Toyin Falola
TOYIN FALOLA is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.
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Contributor: Raphael Chijioke Njoku
RAPHAEL CHIJIOKE NJOKU is professor of history at Idaho State University.
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Contributor: Toyin Falola
TOYIN FALOLA is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.
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Contributor: Wale Adebanwi
WALE ADEBANWI is Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning (2016) and editor of The Political Economy of Everyday Life in Africa (2017).
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Toyin Falola and Ogechukwu Ezekwem Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
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Part I ON THE HISTORY OF THE NIGERIA-BIAFRA WAR
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G.N. Uzoigwe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
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Ogechi E. Anyanwu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
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Raphael Chijioke Njoku Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
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Austine S.O. Okwu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
81 |
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Part II CRITICAL DEBATES ON THE NIGERIAN CRISIS
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Bukola A. Oyeniyi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
111 |
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Wale Adebanwi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
130 |
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Akachi Odoemene Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
166 |
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Olukunle Ojeleye Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
194 |
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Part III THE WAR IN FICTION, MEMOIR, AND IMAGINATION
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Christian Chukwuma Opata Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
209 |
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Cyril Obi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
230 |
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Biodun Jeyifo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
245 |
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Meredith Coffey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
265 |
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Fiona Bateman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
284 |
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Adetayo Alabi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
314 |
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Ode Ogede Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
328 |
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17 Neo-Colonialism, Biafra, and the Causes of War as Imagined in Buchi Emecheta’s Destination Biafra
Françoise Ugochukwu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
361 |
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Hugh Hodges Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
380 |
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Part IV LOCATING GENDER IN NIGERIA-BIAFRA WAR LITERATURE
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Egodi Uchendu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
403 |
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Jane Bryce Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
423 |
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Ofure O.M. Aito Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
454 |
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477 |
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486 |
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 19, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781782047735
Original publisher:
James Currey
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781782047735
Keywords for this book
Nigeria-Biafra War; 1960s Africa; independence; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Nigeria; civil war; African studies; history of war; civil war literature; literary studies
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
