Honours, As Chukwuemeka Ike Turns 80

By Osagie Alonge

As renowned novelist Chukuemeka Ike will be clocking 80 years on Thursday, April 28, 2011, he is set to be honoured  at a special arthouse forum, organised by the Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA).

Ike, a novelist born in the 30s, is a Nigerian writer known for a mixture humour and satire. He studied history, English and Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan and earned a masters degree at Stanford University.

The forum will involve award-winning author Tony Ujubonu of ‘A Pregnancy of the Gods’ and poet Tade Ipadeola, President of PEN Nigeria and author of ‘The Rain Farde a collection of poems’. The forum will be preceded by comments on Ike’s three books by three secondary school students.

A CORA spokesperson said in a statement: ‘The Novelist Chukwuemeka Ike will be 80 on April 28, and on that day, there will be lunch, dances, drama and music at Ndike town hall, in the very town where Bottled Leopard, one of his most popular novels, is set. But the arthouse crowd has a literary feast for the author of Expo 77 two weeks after. On the grounds of the Nigerian International book fair on May 13, 2011, Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, professor of English at the University of Lagos, will moderate an exploratory discussion of Ike’s novels…’

Book publisher Modupe Oduyoye will also deliver a speech on the driving force behind publishing Ike’s books.

The arthouse forum is an occasional series of events, organized by the Committee for Relevant Art, to celebrate a distinguished careers, or call attention to a very specific subject in the contemporary arts of Nigeria.

Ike’s works include Toads for Supper (1965), The Naked Gods (1970), The Potter’s Wheel (1973), Sunset at Dawn (1976), Expo ’77 (Fontana, 1980), The Chicken Chasers (1980), The Bottled Leopard (1985), Our Children Are Coming (1990).