Isidore Okpewho
| Isidore Okpewho | |
|---|---|
| Born |
9 November 1941 Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria |
| Died | 4 September 2016 (aged 74) Binghamton, New York, US |
| Known for | Novelist, critic, scholar, classicist |
| Notable work |
The Victims (1970) The Last Duty (1976) Tides (1993) The Epic in Africa (1979) Myth in Africa (1983) |
Isidore Okpewho, NNOM (9 November 1941 – 4 September 2016), was a Nigerian novelist and critic. He won the 1976 African Arts Prize for Literature, and the 1993 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book Africa.
Also a classicist and scholar, he has been described as one of the most brilliant men of his generation and one of Nigeria’s most iconic literary figures". His academic career took him to the US, where he lived with his wife and four children since 1991 until his death, in Binghamton, New York. According to Professor G. G. Darah of the Nigerian Oral Literature Association (NOLA), Okpewho "will be best remembered for his original contribution to the discourse of oral literature and epics. The value of his scholarship in this area is comparable to that of Professor Cheikh Anta Diop of Senegal on Egyptian sciences and philosophy, Professor Samir Amin of Egypt on African political economy, Professor Ali Mazrui of Kenya on African history, and Professor John Henrik Clarke on African American history and arts."
Isidore Okpewho was born in Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria. His Urhobo father, David Okpewho, was from Abraka, in Delta State, a retired senior laboratory technician, and his Igbo mother was from Asaba.
Okpewho attended St Patrick's College in Asaba, going on to University College, Ibadan, from where he earned a first-class Honours degree in Classics. He obtained his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Denver (1976) and a D.Litt in the Humanities from the University of London (2000).
His early career began with working at the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Ministry of External Affairs, and the Longman publishers, where he served as an editor for eight years.
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