State of the Union [J.P. Clark Bekederemo]

J.P. Clark Bekederemo

Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1985. Offset. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. Perfect bound in illustrated wraps. x, 50 pp.

Collection of poems by John Pepper Clark Bekederemo, the poet, playwright, and editor of the renowned Nigerian literary journal, Black Orpheus.

Written in 1981, these poems were circulated privately in Lagos before their publication by Longman in 1985. In it, the author explores the socio-political state of the country at the birth of the Second Nigerian Republic, decrying the inequality wrought by the oil boom of the 1970s and the military regimes of the ‘70s and ‘80s. As the author describes in the preface, before its publication the collection was read at “a salon in Lagos society where it raised cries of despair from ladies whose house rents alone were symptomatic of the scandal that has been the Nigerian economy.”

Bekederemo was a professor of English at the University of Lagos throughout the 1970s, during which time he edited the groundbreaking Nigerian literary journal, Black Orpheus. Black Orpheus was founded by Ulli Beier and edited during its run by a number of important African writers including Wole Soyinka and Es’kia Mphahlele. As a student, Bekederemo helped form the student poetry magazine The Horn at University of Ibadan. He was also a founder of the PEC Reperetory Theatre in Lagos.

Books by this understudied Nigerian author remain remarkably scarce and this work, contentious in Nigeria, perhaps particularly so. Mild edge wear; overall, very good.