Gabriel Okara

Gabriel Okara
Born
Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara

(1921-04-24)24 April 1921
Bomoundi, Eastern Region, British Nigeria
Died25 March 2019(2019-03-25) (aged 97)
Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria
NationalityNigerian
Occupation(s)Novelist, poet
Notable workThe Voice

Gabriel Imomotimi Okara (24 April 1921 – 25 March 2019)[1] was a Nigerian poet[2] and novelist who was born in Bumoundi in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The first modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978)[3] and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005).[4] In both his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery,[5] and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritudist".[6][7] 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."[8]

  1. ^ "Renowned Poet and Novelist, Gabriel Okara, Dies Just Before 98th Birthday" Archived 25 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Olisa TV, 25 March 2019.
  2. ^ Laurence, Margaret; Stovel, Nora Foster (2001). Long Drums & Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists, 1952–1966. University of Alberta. pp. 171–. ISBN 978-0-88864-332-2. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
  3. ^ "Okara, Gabriel 1921– | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  4. ^ "Nigerian literary community mourns Gabriel Okara". Businessday NG. 25 March 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Britannica was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Staff, Harriet (28 March 2019). "Nigerian Negritudist Gabriel Okara Dies at 97". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  7. ^ Sumaila Umaisha, "Gabriel Imomotimi Gbaingbain Okara: The Poet of the Nun River — interview", African Writing, No. 6.
  8. ^ Brenda Marie Osbey, Introduction, Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems, University of Nebraska Press, 2016.