Fagunwa biography sample

That was how they spared him. After finishing writing the book, the problem of printing arose. He was just worried about printing the book. He had no money on him. Then somebody told him to go to CMS. It was the Europeans who were at the head of affairs there and they were into book selling and publishing. So, when he was on holidays, he went to Lagos.

He went to CMS, met the general manager and told him about his book. The general manager called a Yoruba man there to study the book. He said he was shocked when they asked him how much they should pay for it. He just wanted them to print it. He asked them how much they wanted to pay him. So, they told the cashier to pay him. He bought a Raleigh bicycle, a gramophone, some records, iron bed, mattress and so many other things.

He was able to hire a vehicle from Lagos to bring him to Oyo. He said that was how he wrote his first book. Then he started planning to write another one. By the time he wrote Igbo Olodumare or so, he said he had an idea about publishing. The novel is filled with allegories, moral lessons, and spiritual journeys that echo the structure of traditional Yoruba folktales.

It represents the unknown and serves as a space where characters confront both physical dangers and existential challenges. These works incorporate didactic elements, offering moral lessons about perseverance, integrity, and faith. The characters often face temptations, trials, and supernatural beings that test their moral fortitude, echoing the structure of parables and allegories.

His use of Yoruba proverbs, idioms, and linguistic structures emphasises the richness of African oral traditions, while the themes of spiritual exploration and moral integrity resonate with both indigenous and Christian values. In Nigeria, his novels were widely read, not only for their entertainment value but also for their cultural significance.

By writing in Yoruba, Fagunwa made literature accessible to a broad audience. He also helped preserve and elevate Yoruba language and folklore. His imaginative use of Yoruba mythology and folktale structure fascinated readers and scholars alike, leading to comparisons with other great mythopoeic writers like J. Soyinka himself translated another D.

Over the years, several other novels by D. Fagunwa had been translated into English. Gabriel A. Ireke Onibudo was also framed by Alonge Isaac Olusola into a work with the same title in Fagunwa received several accolades for his literary contributions. In , he was awarded the M argaret Wrong Prize for African Literature in recognition of his role in pioneering indigenous language literature in Nigeria.

This award cements his reputation as a literary giant in both Nigerian and British circles. While he was waiting for the pontoon service to open, he went for a walk along the riverside and slipped when a bit of earth broke under his foot. When he fell, a nearby canoe turned over onto him and pinned him under the water, drowning him. Burial services were held for him in St.

Luke's Anglican Church and he is buried in the cemetery there. Fagunwa day formerly known as Fagunwa night is an annual event aimed at reading and promoting his five books. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. Nigerian author.

Early life [ edit ]. Family history [ edit ]. It has been discovered that the stories and episode recorded in all his novels. His is an interesting meeting-point between experience and imagination; a union of pure fact and outright fiction. This has thrown some light on why igbo forest itself keeps on recurring in his novels. In Yoruba traditional belief, the deep forest is held in great reverence and awe, because the place is replete with all sorts of malevolent practices and diabolical manipulation.

Fagunwa, as a village man, is definitely not a stranger to the purported power and potency of witches and wizards. It is along the roadside and in the clumps of the banana trees in the forest where witches and wizards used to converge, in the dead of the night, to sing songs of bereavement in muffled tones and esoteric language. He marries a witch, Ajediran, who, like all activities in Yoruba belief, is able to turn herself into a bird and fly in the night.

Later when this man takes more wives, this witch shows her wickedness by killing three of her co-wives and eight of their children. In Yoruba folktales, which Fagunwa is undoubtedly familiar with, powerful mythology heroes, hunters and warriors arm theselves with medicines, magical charms and incantations. Charms are sewed into leather and won round the waist, arms and neck; rings are worn round fingers, charms are put inside little gourds.

Some charms are taken orally or through incisions in the body. He himself gave up his middle name Orowale and assumed a new one Olorunfemi ; then proceeded to St. In his life time, Fagunwa was evidently a voracious reader of classical English and Greek literature books. Works of D. L Laosebikan ; Taiwo ati Kehinde with L. Lawis These thematic similarities make one to conclude that, in Fagunwa, if you have read just one of his novels, then you have indirectly read all of his novels!

Most characters, especially the minor ones are paper-thin; vaguely depicted; unreastically portrayed; passive and dull. They disappear as suddenly as they appear! It is the submission of most of the critics that the true greatness of Daniel Fagunwa as a writer majorly lies in the stupendous way he handles the Yoruba language in all his five novels.

The gift of language is a distinctive quality which sets Fagunwa apart from his successors. In creativeness and inventiveness. He has no equal. Fagunwa has an ear for music and rhythms of Yoruba Language. Many of the passages in his novels have a poetic quality about them.

Fagunwa biography sample

These are elements to which the average Yoruba readers respond, with delight. And according to Olubummo, Fagunwa is able to get away with almost anything by the sheer dazzling brilliance of his words. His books are full of vivid, fanciful comparisons. And here again, we can quote p4 of igbo Olodumare where Fagunwa says: Mo ti bu okele koja ibiti enu mi gba Mo fi omi tutu ro elubo Mofi akara je iresi Mo gbe gari fun Oyinbo wa mu.

Final Submission: From the fore-going, Mr. Chairman, guest of honour, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, it is quite evident that, in Fagunwa, we are dealing with a writers of great promise, of rare talent, with plenty of creative propensity. Fagunwa, as an indigenous writer, probably occupies the same respectable position as other great world-renowned indigenous writers like Chinese Geo Xingjian, Polish Wislawa Szymborska, Japanese Kezamburo Oe, Czechoslovakian Jaro Siefert, and Yugoslavian Ivo Andric, all of who have, at one time or the other, won the Nobel Prize for Literature, writing in their mother tongues.

More translations of his works need to be embarked upon in order to expose his major works to international audience.