Literature for the Masses: An Analytical Study of Popular Pamphleteering in Nigeria [Foreword by Chinua Achebe]

Dr. Emmanuel Obiechina. Chinua Achebe, foreword.

Enugu, Nigeria: Nwamife Books, 1971. 5 3/4 x 8 1/4 in. In illustrated red and white wraps. 84 pp.

A careful study of Onitsha Market Literature by the Nigerian academic Emmanuel Obiechina, with a foreword by the acclaimed novelist, poet, and critic, Chinua Achebe.

Consisting of chapbooks published primarily in the 1960s by local presses and sold in the bustling Onitsha market in eastern Nigeria, the genre largely dealt with themes of modernization and urbanization in 20th Century West Africa. The most prolific and well-known authors of the form include Felix N. Stephen, Speedy Eric, Thomas O. Iguh, and O. Olisah. Their stories reflect the struggles to reconcile traditional rural values with Western colonial modernity - what Achebe terms in the foreword “an emerging Igbo capitalism.”

A remarkable document of African literary criticism. Previous booksellers stick on flypaper; very good.