Chinua Achebe, generally regarded as the “grandfather of modern African literature” may be dead and gone to his grave but without that ending his engagement with Nigerian politics. This time, however, he is doing so through Okike, the African Journal of New Writing which is about the only surviving quality journal in the Humanities in Nigeria, having, miraculously, refused to die like other journals in Nigeria. Okike is coming out with a edition marking the Golden Jubilee of one of Achebe’s classics, A Man of the People, the fictional works where Achebe turned on the agency of the post colonial elite vis-a-vis class leadership, power and national liberation in postcolonial Africa. The edition is, therefore, providing new crop of writers and critics to take Achebe up in his formulation of the problem. It has been his formulation of that theme in opposition to the thinking symbolised by Joseph Conrad’s literary imagination before he branched to internal dynamics that has marked him as the quintessential ‘sage on stage’ (the teacher).
Achebe with Mandela, another ‘sage on stage’ at a University of Cape Town award in South Africa
Professor Amechi Nicholas Akwanya, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka based Editor of Okike, has issued the last call for papers for the commemorative edition scheduled to be published later next month. The new deadline is July 15th, 2018. Under the theme: A Man of the People and the Ethics of Power”, the edition would cover several sub-themes viz: A Man of the People and Social Responsibility; A Man of the People and Struggle for Power; A Man of the People and Godfatherism; A Man of the People and the Refusal of Self-Knowledge; A Man of the People and the Critique of Tradition; Politics as a Strategy of Containment in A Man of the People; A Man of the People and Hubris; A Man of the People and the Deferral of Nation-Building; A Man of the People and Segmentation of Society.
Others are A Man of the People and the Rough Beast; A Man of the People and the Will to Power; A Man of the People and Reification of Power; A Man of the People: Crime and Punishment; Discursive Formations in A Man of the People; A Man of the People and Comparative Discourse Analysis; A Man of the People and the Instinct of Self-Survival Fiefdomization of a Nation in A Man of the People; A Man of the People and Populist Politics; A Man of the People and Iconoclasm; Figuration of Authority in A Man of the People; Self-Centred Vision inA Man of the People
The Journal will consider only papers with MLA (Eighth Edition) or APA formatting, said Prof Akwanya who is asking those keen on sending papers to do so through newafricanwriting.okike@gmail.com by the new date of July 15th, 2018.
