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Cyprian Ekwensi (1921-2007) - Pharmacist & Prodigious & Prolific Novelist

Sun News
15th Nov.'07

Cyprian Ekwensi, one of the few remaining earliest Nigerian novelists in the English Language, died recently in Enugu at the age of 86. Ekwensi was said to have died of an undisclosed ailment at the Niger Foundation Hospital in Enugu where he underwent an operation.

His death came weeks after Dr. Ene Henshaw, another very significant Nigerian literary figure, passed on in Calabar. A prodigious and prolific novelist of the popular variety, Ekwensi will be remembered for very many things within and outside of the literary circles.

The author of the popular "Jaguar Nana" and later a sequel "Jaguar Nana’s Daughter", he was the father of the popular literature in Nigeria which later blossomed to what became the “Onitsha Market Literature.” Though a pharmacist, he was more engrossed in his literary engagement and for which he was more known, recognized and appreciated. His earlier novels are mostly thematically anchored on life in the city when his contemporaries were concerned with life on the other side of the social divide – the village and provincial life. Perhaps this was a justification of his own experience as a complete Nigerian of some sorts – an Easterner who was born in the North and educated in the West.

Ekwensi indeed has enriched the Nigerian literary corpus. Even though his standing with literary critics has not been as astounding as those of his contemporaries and later writers, his place in the Nigerian and African literary firmament remains prominent and will endure. Those in their 40s and above will always remember his earlier novels and novellas with a measure of good feeling and nostalgia.

He started his writing career as a pamphleteer, a feature that runs in an episodic form throughout most of his novels in the later years. He wrote the "People of the City" in 1954 which portrays life in the city and which was the first major novel to be published by a Nigerian. In 1960, he published the novellas for children, "The Drummer Boy" and the "Passport of Mallam Ilia" while his most widely read works, "Jaguar Nana" and the "Burning Grass" appeared in 1961. Between 1963 and 1966, he published at least one major work every year. The most important of these were the novels, "Beautiful Feathers" (1963) and "Isaka" (1966) and two collections of short stories, "Rainmaker" (1965) and "Lokotown" (1966).

Even beyond this period, Ekwensi continued to publish, among which are the novels, "Divided We Stand" (1980), the novella "Motherless Baby" (1980) and "The Restless City" and "Christmas Gold" (1975), "Behind the Convent Wall" (1987) and "Gone to Mecca" (1991). He also published a number of works for children under the name C.O.D. Ekwensi also wrote "Ikolo the Wrestler" and other Ibo Tales, "The Leopard’s Claw," "African Nights Entertainment," "Samanwke" and "The Highway Robbers."

Born September 26, 1921 at Nkwelle Ezunaka in Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State, Cyprian Odiatu Ekwensi attended Government School, Jos; Government College, Ibadan; Achimota Collage, Ghana; Higher Collage, Yaba, Lagos; School of Forestry, Ibadan; Chelsea School of Pharmacy, University of London. He also attended an international writing programme in Iowa University. He worked as a pharmacist in Nigeria’s Medical Service in 1956.

Ekwensi later joined the Nigerian Ministry of Information and rose to the position of the ministry’s director by the time the first military coup of 1966 occurred. Following the continuation of the disturbances occasioned by the coup, he gave up his position and relocated to Enugu where he chaired the Bureau for External Publicity in Biafra. He was also an adviser to the then head of state, Col, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. He was head of features in the Nigerian Broadcasting Services (1957), director of information of the Federal Ministry of Information Services, Enugu (1966); he also held the directorship of Star Printing and Publishing (1975 –’79) and Eagle magazine.

Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR), he received the Dag Hammarskjold International Award for literary Merit in 1968. He joined the Fellowship of Nigerian Academy of Letters in 2005. Cyprian Ekwensi lived a very memorable life both as a pharmacist and a man of letters.

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