EDUCATION

Dele Momodu Lends Voice To Who Is Africa’s Best In Literature

<h4>Dele Momodu Lends Voice<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p><strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that for a long time&comma; there have been contentious views and arguments in the literary world about who&comma; among great writers&comma; is Africa’s greatest&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To a large extent&comma; the analyses have been narrowed down between Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Technically&comma; Wole Soyinka enjoys commendable reviews and appreciation partly on account of his Nobel Prize for Literature&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Professor of Comparative Literature also speaks with such flair and elocution&comma; and with such an affected accent far and above his co traveller on the literary lane&comma; Achebe&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However and on the other hand&comma; some analysts&comma; who like reading and listening to Soyinka&comma; they seem to have been constantly bogged down with questions and references about him and his work as being populated with magniloquence and abstractive esoteric difficulties&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They complain that his work and writing are self-gratuitous and impossible for the common persons to understand and comprehend&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For Achebe&comma; many regard him as being a better writer than Soyinka&period; They see him more as a conceptual literary success than most other African writers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Someone described Achebe as being more readable&comma; more accessible with a well-defined autochthonous style that has deeper and sweeter meaningful cultural etymology&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On the strength of this argument in favour of Achebe&comma; many have asked&colon; why didn’t Achebe win the Nobel Prize&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In defence&comma; the pro Achebe group contends that the awardees didn’t see any useful value in his style&comma; and in the use of the language of idiomatic cultural ecology in his literary work&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In addition&comma; they reckon that it is rumored that the West hated Achebe and despised his affront on the colonialists&comma; and that his caustic positions both written and spoken on the evils of the whiteman on the world&comma; made him a less likeable and less likely candidate for the givers of the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;vanguardngr&period;com&sol;">Nobel<&sol;a> titles&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to information&comma; Achebe is said to have looked them straight in their eyes&comma; and told them to go to hell&period; For this&comma; they swore never to recognize his towering talents and the top quality of his works&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Viewed differently&comma; a renowned journalist and politician&comma; Dele Momodu sees it from different perspective&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;He argues that to use these qualifications as a measure or yardsticks of a writer’s value&comma; seem misplaced&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;In lending his voice&comma; Momodu said&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&&num;8220&semi;For me&comma; it all depends on the genre of Literature&period; Chinua Achebe is certainly the greatest African Novelist of all time while Wole Soyinka is the greatest African playwright of all time&&num;8230&semi; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>To lump the two together would be a great disservice to the two literary geniuses who wrote with stupendous energies&&num;8230&semi; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>In the last 60 years&comma; they have both dominated our literary firmament and were they businessmen&comma; they would have been charged for unhealthy monopolies&&num;8230&semi; <strong>Achebe&&num;8217&semi;s novels Things Fall Apart&comma; No Longer At Ease&comma; A Man Of The People&comma; Arrow Of God&comma;<&sol;strong> remain unbeatable&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Soyinka&&num;8217&semi;s plays <strong>Death And The King&&num;8217&semi;s Horseman&comma; Kongi&&num;8217&semi;s Harvest&comma; The Trials Of Brother Jero&comma; Madmen And Specialists&comma; Opera Wonyosi&comma; A Dance Of The Forests&comma; The Lion And The Jewel&comma;<&sol;strong> all remain eternal masterpieces&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Though there&&num;8217&semi;s no evidence of royalties that accrued&comma; and still accruing&comma; to both legends&comma; I would assume that Achebe recorded more commercial success&comma; especially with the almost supernatural popularity of <strong>Things Fall Apart<&sol;strong> and its countless translations&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>But cumulatively&comma; no African writer has produced voraciously like Wole Soyinka&comma; an all rounder in drama&comma; novel&comma; poetry and essays&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>None has also traveled globally as much as Soyinka who continues to teach even on the eve of his 90th birthday next month&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;25621" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-25621" style&equals;"width&colon; 300px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"size-medium wp-image-25621" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2024&sol;06&sol;Dele-Momodu1-300x232&period;jpeg" alt&equals;"Dele Momodu Lends Voice To Who Is Africa’s Best In Literature" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"232" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-25621" class&equals;"wp-caption-text"><em><strong>Dele Momodu<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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