Nigerian literary community mourns Gabriel Okara

Barley a month after the death of Pius Adesanmi, a Nigerian-born Canadian professor, writer and literary critic in a plane crash and Okwui Enwezor, a curator, art critic, writer, and poet, the Nigerian literary community is disheartened with the news of the death of Gabriel Imomotimi Okara, a world-acclaimed poet and novelist.
Born in Bumoundi, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on April 24, 1921, the renowned author died March 25, 2019 in his sleep at his residence at Okaka Estate in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, after a brief illness.

His death was barely four weeks before his 98th birthday. He attended the famous Government College Umuahia, went further to Yaba Higher College and Northwestern University, USA.

While alive, he traced his journey of a successful literary career to Government College Umuahia, where he was exposed to and inspired by the writings of Williams Shakespeare and other literary icons.

The author would be remembered for his pioneer role, numerous contributions and feats in the African literary landscape. Okara was the first modernist poet of Anglophone Africa and best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman’s Invocation (1978) and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005). In both his poems and prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery, and he was called “the Nigerian Negritudist”. According to Brenda Marie Osbey, editor of his Collected Poems, “It is with publication of Gabriel Okara’s first poem that Nigerian literature in English and modern African poetry in this language can be said truly to have begun.”

Taking a further look at his works, in 1953 his poem, “The Call of the River Nun” won an award at the Nigerian Festival of Arts. Some of his poetry was published in the literary magazine Black Orpheus, and by 1960 he had won recognition as an accomplished literary craftsman, his poetry being translated into several languages.

One of Okara’s most famous poems is “Piano and Drum.” Another popular poem, “You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed,” is a frequent feature of anthologies. Okara was very concerned with what happens when the ancient culture of Africa is faced with modern Western culture, as in his poem “Once Upon a Time”.

He attended the landmark African Writers Conference held on 1 June 1962 at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda, along with such writers as Chinua Achebe, Rajat Neogy, Bloke Modisane, Okot p’Bitek, Bernard Fonlon, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Segun Olusola, Grace Ogot, Jonathan Kariara, Rebecca Njau, Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Saunders Redding, Christopher Okigbo, Francis Ademola, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Arthur Maimane, and others.

In addition to his poetry and fiction, Okara also wrote plays and features for broadcasting, while many of his unpublished manuscripts were destroyed during the Nigerian Civil War.