SCORECARD: Under Tinubu, Nigeria’s education sector yet to see renewed hopeSPECIAL REPORT: Rising cost of sanitary pads impedes menstrual hygiene among Nigerian womenSPECIAL REPORT: Enugu community where residents rely on polluted river, deplorable PHCFriday Sermon: The day of Arafah and fasting, By Murtadha GusauSCORECARD: Under Tinubu, Nigeria’s education sector yet to see renewed hopeSPECIAL REPORT: Rising cost of sanitary pads impedes menstrual hygiene among Nigerian womenSPECIAL REPORT:...
Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi’s eternal rival, who is now 39, started out at Sporting Lisbon, his hometown Club, before Alex Ferguson, great at turning talents into stars, plucked him from there and groomed him into a global football legend at Manchester United, where he won the first in the series of Balon D’ors and UEFA Champion League titles.
It’s essential to acknowledge that news production incurs expenses, and we take pride in never placing our stories behind a prohibitive paywall.The debate which pitches Achebe against Soyinka is not new at all. It however heightened after 1986, when Wole Soyinka, an essayist, musician, film producer, novelist, poet, dramatist, political activist and social crusader won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He became the first-ever black African to win that honour.
Achebe is a novelist, literary critic, essayist and has three poetry collections. He has written short stories and children’s books, including autobiographies. He was the inspiration behind the now moribund African Writers Series published by Heinemann. That platform mobilised and gave a solid pedestal to many African writers.
A comparison between Achebe and Soyinka was deceptively presented by another writer, Kole Omotoso, in 1996, in his critical work,. That title only flattered to deceive because, if readers had rushed for it to read about who was the better writer between the two icons, the book disappoints. Rather, the book reviews the themes and cultural influences at the centre of the engagements of both writers.
An intellectual discussion on the works of these two great global citizens of Nigerian extraction is a healthy one. Criticism is acceptable academic culture, particularly in the universe of the arts – whether literature, theatre, music, fine arts and design, film, etc.in 1958 and succumbed to the grim reaper at 85. Before his exit from the physical realm, he had written about 30 books and won all available awards, except the Nobel Prize in Literature.