The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta

Description

This book examines the depiction of the Delta region of Nigeria through literature and other cultural art forms. The Niger Delta has been thrust into the global limelight due to resource extraction and conflict, but it is also a region with a rich culture, environment, and heritage. The creative imagination of the area’s artists has been fuelled by the area’s pressing concerns of indigenous peoples, minority discourse, environmental degradation, climate change, multinational corporations' greed, dictatorship, and people’s struggle for control of their resources. Taking a holistic approach to the Niger Delta experience, this book showcases artistic responses from literature, visual arts, and performances (such as masquerades, dances, and festivals). Chapters cover authors, artists, and performers such as Ben Okri, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Isidore Okpewho, J.P. Clark, and Bruce Onobrakpeya, as well as topics like the famous Benin bronze figures and Urhobo Udje dance. Affirming the wealth and diversity of the region which continues to inspire creative artistic productions, The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta will be of interest to researchers of African literature, arts, and other cultural productions. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of editors and contributors The background 1 Introduction 2 Toward a bioregional, politico-historical, and sociocultural identity of the Niger Delta Oratures and traditional festivals 3 Form and content of Ibibiod traditional festivals: Ekpo, Ekpe and Mbopo 4 Traditional Ijo poetry 5 The cultural aesthetics of Benin traditional festival performances 6 Urhobo udje: an indigenous satiric genre Visual arts 7 Benin art: changes through time and space 8 Urhobo culture and modernism: configuring mutual reinforcements in the art of Bruce Onobrakpeya 9 Art for land and water: notes on Urhobo and their neighbors Popular culture 10 Cosmopolitans at one with homeland: Niger Delta popular musicians from Rex Lawson and Victor Uwaifo to Omawumi and Burna Boy 11 Explorations in pidgin poetry from the Niger Delta 12 “Warri no dey carry last”: the Niger Delta in Nigeria’s stand-up comedic imaginary Environmentalism 13 Environmentalism in modern poetry of the Niger Delta 14 Nature’s animism and its appropriation in Niger  Delta poetry 15 Narrative constructions of eco-disharmony in selected Niger Delta novels Conflict literature 16 “The perfection of chaos”: heeding the nostalgic imperative in selected works by Ben Okri 17 From the Niger Delta’s viewpoint: the Nigerian Civil War literature 18 Bearing witness: a taxonomy of dissent in J.P. Clark- Bekederemo’s plays 19 Exploitation, corruption and agency in three Niger Delta movies Of writers and personages 20 Literature, eco-activism and the Saro-Wiwa imaginary 21 The poetics of place and the Niger Delta minority discourse in Festus Iyayi’s fiction 22 Passivity and agency: the dilemma of female characters in the works of Zulu Sofola, Buchi Emecheta, and Tess Onwueme Index